Improvements in Diagnostic Techniques in Medicine with Lower Exposure of the Patient and Staff

It is a well known fact that radiation doses from the use of ionizing radiations and radionuclides in medical diagnosis and treatment are the largest contribution to the collective dose from all man-made sources of radiation, occupying about 15% of the total collective dose, and rapidly increase over the world, due to their relatively high frequency. From this, it is obvious that medical use of ionizing radiation should be of major concern for radiation protection. There has been significant development of imaging technology for diagnostic radiology and other medical imaging technology over the past 100 years, and the doses of radiation to the patient and staff in medical uses have steadily decreased. Despite of developments in diagnostic techniques, the problem of trading off image quality against health risk due to radiation exposure still persists. This paper will briefly summarize the historical overview of developments of techniques and equipments in diagnostic radiology, and introduce the goal of a radiation safety philosophy and ALARA in diagnostic radiology.