Structure of the meeting of the German radiological society and scientific discourse pertaining to radiation dose and dose reduction. An analysis of 1998-2008

Purpose: Evaluation of the emphasis of themes pertaining to radiation dose and dose reduction at the Meeting of the German Radiological Society from 1998-2008 in comparison to international data. Materials and Methods: Retrospective analysis of 9440 abstracts with documentation of study presentation character, type of imaging, and examined body region. Abstracts stating radiation dose or primarily dealing with radiation dose/dose reduction were documented. Results were compared with a Pubmed query. Results: The percentage of purely scientific presentations sank in the observation period from 88 to 66%. While contributions dealing with MRI sank from 48 to 34%, those dealing with CT rose from 30 to 34%. The percentage of abstracts dealing with radiation dose rose from 7 to 10%, while that of work primarily pertaining to dose/dose reduction grew from 4 to 6% and 2 to 4%, respectively. Of all abstracts concerning CT, 15% touched on radiation dose, while 9% and 6% primarily dealt with dose and dose reduction. The respective numbers for cardiac CT, whose relative share of all CT abstracts rose from 3% in 1998 to 12% in 2008, were 10%, 7%, and 5%. An online query produced 137,791 publications on CT, and 2% of these abstracts mentioned radiation dose and 0.5% mentioned dose reduction. Conclusion: The number of presentations dealing with dose at the Meeting of the German Radiological Society has risen with time and is higher than the international number. On the other hand, >90% of all presentations and >85% of all CT abstracts do not mention radiation dose. In light of increasing public concern relating to radiation exposure, more intensive research of these themes is warranted. (orig.)