(1.5 mSv, 64 mGy) that is performed once with and once without contrast agent, would be equivalent to 40 years of background radiation to the head. Accurate estimation of effective doses due to CT is difficult with the estimation uncertainty range of about ±19% to ±32% for adult head scans depending upon the method used. The risk of radiation is greater to a fetus, so in pregnant patients, the benefits of the investigation (X-ray) should be balanced with the potential hazards to the fetus. If there is 1 scan in 9 months, it can be harmful to the fetus. Therefore, women who are pregnant get ultrasounds as their diagnostic imaging because this does not use radiation. If there is too much radiation exposure there could be harmful effects on the fetus or the reproductive organs of the mother. In the US, there are an estimated 62 million CT scans performed annually, including more than 4 million on children. Avoiding unnecessary X-rays (especially CT scans) reduces radiation dose and any associated cancer risk. Medical X-rays are a significant source of human-made radiation exposure. In 1987, they accounted for 58% of exposure from human-made sources in the United States. Since human-made sources accounted for only 18% of the total radiation exposure, most of which came from natural sources (82%), medical X-rays only accounted for 10% of total American radiation exposure; medical procedures as a whole (including nuclear medicine) accounted for 14% of total radiation exposure. By 2006, however, medical procedures in the United States were contributing much more ionizing radiation than was the case in the early 1980s. In 2006, medical exposure constituted nearly half of the total radiation exposure of the U.S. population from all sources. The increase is traceable to the growth in the use of medical imaging procedures, in particular computed tomography (CT), and to the growth in the use of nuclear medicine. Dosage due to dental X-rays varies significantly depending on the procedure and the technology (film or digital). Depending on the procedure and the technology, a single dental X-ray of a human results in an exposure of 0.5 to 4 mrem. A full mouth series of X-rays may result in an exposure of up to 6 (digital) to 18 (film) mrem, for a yearly average of up to 40 mrem. Financial incentives have been shown to have a significant impact on X-ray use with doctors who are