1 Department of Pediatrics, Stein Research Center, Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson, University Philadelphia
Parents of children in the intensive care nursery or pediatric intensive care area are frequently made anxious by the repeated diagnostic radiologic studies that have to be performed. Because of the known risks of cancer following high doses of radiation,1 it can easily be understood why both physicians and lay individuals may become uneasy if patient care necessitates repeated roentgenographic studies.
Much of this anxiety could be allayed if more physicians were aware of the quantitative risks of radiation exposure and would, therefore, be in a position to explain these risks to the inquiring famlies.
Spengler and colleagues (in this issue)2 have undertaken an important and difficult epidemiologic study and are to be congratulated on this effort.