Erratum

The article “NCRP Report 160 and What It Means for Medical Imaging and Nuclear Medicine,” by Bolus (J Nucl Med Technol. 2013;41:255–260) contains some misstatements in the section “Primary Source of Medical Exposure to Ionizing Radiation in United States.” The corrected section appears below. The author regrets the error.Report 160 found that the biggest increase in exposure to ionizing radiation in U.S. citizens was from medical procedures. Specifically, CT was by far the greatest contributor, at 49% of all medical exposure. Nuclear medicine procedures came in second, accounting for 26% of all medical exposure. Interventional fluoroscopy accounted for 14%, and conventional radiography and fluoroscopy accounted for the remaining 11%. Exposure resulting from radiation therapy was not included in report 160 because such exposure was considered part of a treatment process. The number of CT procedures per year in the United States rose from 18.3 million in 1993 to 62 million in 2006—an approximately 239% increase. This large increase in CT utilization is due to several factors, including better technology and throughput and diagnostic reliability. Concern about this exposure has led the public and the scientific community to take CT dose reduction techniques seriously (Table 2; Fig. 6) (5,6).