Abstract

The main focus of this paper is addressing the concerns that people express about receiving radiation exposure from a position emission tomography – computed tomography (PET-CT) examination, ignorant to the fact that they are exposed to radiation everyday.  In this paper we will cover what ionizing radiation is, the different types of radiation and the origin of the radiation.  A contrast and comparison will be conducted between exposure received from natural background radiation everyday and the exposure received from PET-CT procedures.  The findings of this research reveal that the majority of the radiation that most people receive on a daily basis comes from exposure to natural background radiation rather than from nuclear imaging procedures which account for only 4% of their radiation exposure.  In addition, the research revealed that patient and technologist education regarding PET-CT procedures needs to be enhanced.