How Worrying Is the Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on the Population Radiation Risk from Increased Number of CT-Scans?

More than a decade before the COVID-19 crisis, it was reported that the rapid growth in ionizing radiation-based imaging procedures had caused a significant increase in the collective dose by more than 700% and an increase in the annual per-capita dose by almost 600%, as estimated by the US NCRP [1, 2]. Scientist around the globe discussed that such a rapid growth could be associated with significant effect on public health. Most of the exponential growth of cardiovascular computed tomography (CT) scan and nuclear Imaging, which require larger radiation doses than traditional x-ray imaging. Brenner and Hall in their review article published in the New England Journal of Medicine reported that CT scans increased from ~ 3 million in 1980 to an estimated 62 million in 2006 (20.67 x growth in 26 years) [3]. While imaging technological advances such as adaptive, statistical, iterative image reconstruction techniques have been linked to a significant radiation dose reduction [4], reports show that in countries such as the US most of the increased exposures were due to CT scans and nuclear medicine imaging which need much larger radiation doses compared to those of traditional X-ray imaging procedures.