Clinical characteristics and frequent risk factors in young adult patients with stroke at a tertiary care hospital in Honduras.

Ionizing radiation is integral to modern medical practice, driving advancements in diagnostic imaging, cancer therapy, and minimally invasive interventions. While enhancing diagnostic accuracy and therapeutic precision, its use carries inherent risks (). Diagnostic modalities—such as plain radiography, computed tomography (CT), and fluoroscopy—utilize comparatively low radiation doses to acquire anatomical or functional data. In contrast, therapeutic applications in oncology employ substantially higher doses to ablate malignant tissue. This divergence in dose and clinical objective yields distinct risk profiles, necessitating tailored paradigms for clinical decision-making and patient communication. Clear dialogue allows patients to weigh benefits against potential harms, enabling meaningful participation in their care. Developing robust frameworks for communicating radiation risk is critical not only for regulatory compliance but also for advancing patient-centered medical practice amid rapidly evolving technologies. Effective communication of radiation-associated risks is an ethical imperative, serving as the foundation for informed consent, collaborative decision-making, and patient safety (–). This review critically synthesizes current evidence on patient-centered radiation risk communication. It draws a clear distinction between the communicative obligations inherent to diagnostic imaging, where exposure levels are modest and risk terminology must remain proportionate, and those required for therapeutic interventions, which involve substantially higher doses and necessitate strict analyses of risks and benefits. Ultimately, this synthesis yields recommendations grounded in evidence to guide clinical practice and optimize training curricula within radiological disciplines. To achieve this, searches were conducted across PubMed and Google Scholar using combinations of the following terms: “radiation risk communication,” “informed consent radiation,” “low dose radiation risk,” “patient radiation perception,” “radiographer communication training,” and “visual aids radiation.” Inclusion was guided by relevance to patient communication, clinical practice, and radiation risk, focusing on literature published in English. A central challenge in communicating radiation risk arises from the scientific ambiguity surrounding low-dose exposures, particularly below 100 millisieverts (mSv)—the range commonly used in diagnostic procedures (–). To contextualize these doses, practitioners often compare them to natural background radiation, which averages approximately 2–3 mSv per year (0.2–0.3 rem/year) globally. Against this baseline, a standard chest X-ray delivers approximately 0.2 mSv (0.02 rem), while a single CT examination contributes roughly 5 mSv (0.5 rem). For most patients undergoing infrequent imaging, these values represent a modest incremental increase in their total radiation burden ().