An amazing accomplishment - CT manufacturers deserve our thanks

摘要

In the latter half of the 1990s, CT technical advancements proceeded at an extremely rapid pace. The emphasis was on producing exquisite CT image quality and the ability to try these new techniques for, it seemed, almost any indication. The highly sophisticated technology was complex and understood by few of its users. And, as well, proponents for significant CT radiation safety with lower doses for children were few. Then, in 2001, USA Today reported on three articles that had appeared in the February issue of AJR. The gist of the newspaper article, as reported (incorrectly), was that CT scans will result in fatal cancer in children. The public outcry was remarkable and caught pediatric radiologists off-guard. In an editorial, Slovis and Berdon stated that "The technology is unequivocally running the physicians" and that it is clear radiologists do not know all the answers to dose reduction. The Society for Pediatric Radiology presented the first ALARA (as low as reasonably achievable radiation dose) conference in August 2001, published in April 2002.