Abdominal Radiology — Specialty Profile

Exploratory, not prescriptive. This profile blends hard data (pay, match rates, burnout, demographics, each sourced and dated) with generalizations and synthesized opinion about culture and "who fits." It's here to help you get curious and go find out for yourself, not to tell you who to become. Numbers marked ⟳ verify change every year; check the linked source before you quote one. Last reviewed: 2026-08-04.

Also called: body imaging, abdominal imaging, body MRI. A 1-year fellowship entered after a diagnostic radiology residency, not a residency you match into from medical school. Organ systems: everything between the diaphragm and the pelvic floor.

Subspecialty fellowship of Diagnostic Radiology.

The 30-second version

Abdominal radiology is the largest-volume subspecialty in the largest-volume specialty in medicine, which makes it the workhorse of the entire imaging enterprise. Almost every abdominal complaint in an emergency department, every cancer staged or restaged, every cirrhotic patient screened for hepatocellular carcinoma, and every incidental finding on a scan ordered for something else lands on a body radiologist's list. The subspecialty covers liver, pancreas, kidneys, adrenals, bowel, and the genitourinary and gynecologic organs, across CT, MRI, and ultrasound, and it is where most of the standardized reporting systems in radiology were built, because when a finding is common enough you need a shared language for it. LI-RADS for liver lesions, PI-RADS for prostate MRI, and O-RADS for ovarian masses are all abdominal systems, and each one turns a description into a management recommendation. The trade at the center of the field: the broadest and most consistently employable reading skill in radiology, with excellent remote potential, in a non-accredited fellowship with no board and the highest study volume in the specialty.

Quick dashboard (details and sources below)
Training after med school 6 years (1 intern year + 4 yr diagnostic radiology + 1 yr abdominal radiology fellowship)
Total from college start ~14 years (4 undergrad + 4 med school + 5 residency + 1 fellowship)
Training chain Med school (4) → Diagnostic Radiology (5) → 1 yr abdominal radiology fellowship (non-ACGME)
Competitiveness Moderate. One of the largest fellowship pools in radiology, with no published match statistics ⟳
Typical full-time pay No abdominal survey line. Parent radiology runs ~$550,000–$575,000, with partners $700,000–$1.2M+ ⟳
Pay vs. parent (general radiology) Around it. High volume and universal employability, without a procedural premium ⟳
Lifestyle Reading-room based, strong schedule control, among the best remote options in medicine ⟳
Burnout No subspecialty figure. Parent radiology is 45.2% against a 41.9% all-physician average on the AMA's 2025 survey. Medscape 2024 puts it at 51%, upper third of its table, and this is where volume pressure is heaviest ⟳
% women 39.3% of abdominal radiology fellows (ACGME AY2024-25, n=56); parent radiology 27% practicing (2022) and 29.2% of residents ⟳
DO / IMG accessibility Gated behind radiology, historically reachable (15.0% DO, 11.4% IMG of filled PGY-2 positions, 2026 Match), with the window narrowing ⟳
Board No ABR certificate. ABR certifies neuroradiology, nuclear radiology, pediatric radiology and pain medicine only. ACGME does accredit abdominal radiology fellowships, 13 programs in AY2024-25 ⟳

What they actually do

Oncologic imaging is the largest single category. Staging and restaging of essentially every abdominal and pelvic malignancy, plus the surveillance that follows, read against response criteria that determine whether a treatment continues. A large share of an oncology practice's decisions are made from a body radiologist's report.

Hepatobiliary and pancreatic imaging is the field's most technically demanding territory: characterizing liver lesions in cirrhotic patients under LI-RADS, assessing pancreatic masses for resectability in coordination with hepatopancreatobiliary surgery, and MRCP for biliary disease. Determining whether a pancreatic tumor involves the mesenteric vessels is a report that decides whether an operation happens.

Genitourinary imaging covers renal masses, prostate MRI reported through PI-RADS, which has become a central part of prostate cancer diagnosis, and the adrenal and retroperitoneal work.

Gynecologic imaging brings ultrasound and MRI of the uterus and ovaries, with O-RADS for adnexal masses, plus placental and pelvic floor imaging.

Bowel imaging covers inflammatory bowel disease with MR and CT enterography, obstruction, ischemia, and CT colonography where it is used.

Emergency abdominal imaging is a large share of the acute workload: appendicitis, diverticulitis, obstruction, perforation, and the abdominal trauma read that has to be right quickly.

Incidental findings are their own genuine problem. A scan ordered for one thing routinely shows something else, and deciding what warrants follow-up, using published guidelines, is a substantial and under-appreciated part of the job with real consequences for cost, anxiety, and occasionally for finding a cancer early.

Representative work: contrast-enhanced abdominal and pelvic CT · abdominal MRI including liver, pancreas, and prostate protocols · abdominal and pelvic ultrasound, including Doppler · oncologic staging and response assessment · LI-RADS, PI-RADS, and O-RADS structured reporting · MR and CT enterography · MRCP · CT colonography · image-guided biopsy and drainage at institutions where body radiologists perform them · incidental finding management and follow-up recommendation.1

A day in the life: a large worklist. Abdominal radiology carries the highest study volume of any radiology subspecialty, and the day is structured around getting through it well. The studies are varied, since a body list mixes oncologic surveillance, emergency scans, and problem-solving MRI in the same session. Communication with clinicians is frequent, particularly with oncology, gastroenterology, and surgery. Tumor board participation is standard.

On call: the parent field's, and emergency abdominal CT is a large and constant share of what overnight radiology call consists of.

The training path & time to completion

Medical school (4 yrs) → diagnostic radiology residency (1 intern year + 4 years) → 1-year abdominal radiology fellowship → practice.12

  • The fellowship is one year, and what it does not lead to is a certificate rather than accreditation. ACGME accredits six diagnostic radiology subspecialties, and abdominal radiology is one of them, with 13 accredited programs in AY2024-25. The others are musculoskeletal radiology, neuroendovascular intervention, neuroradiology, nuclear radiology, and pediatric radiology. What does not exist for abdominal radiology is an ABR subspecialty certificate, which ABR issues for neuroradiology, nuclear radiology, pediatric radiology, and pain medicine only.2
  • There is no ABR subspecialty certificate. A body radiologist holds general ABR diagnostic radiology certification, with the fellowship as the credential.2
  • Total from the start of college: about 14 years.
  • Combined fellowships exist, including combined abdominal and musculoskeletal programs, which some trainees use to broaden employability in general or community practice.1

What the fellowship buys, and why it is the safe choice. Abdominal imaging is the largest share of what any radiologist reads, so this fellowship makes you better at the majority of your future worklist rather than at a narrow slice of it. That is the standard argument for choosing it, and it is a good one: a body-trained radiologist is employable in essentially every practice setting, because every practice needs body coverage. The counterargument is that it differentiates you least, precisely because it overlaps most with general practice.

How competitive is it?

No published match statistics for radiology subspecialty fellowships were located. What can be said is structural.

  • Abdominal is among the largest fellowship pools in radiology, with programs at essentially every academic center, so capacity is substantial.
  • Demand is universal. Every radiology practice needs body readers, which makes this the most reliably employable subspecialty in the field and the reason it is a common choice.
  • The upstream residency has become competitive, having swung back to genuinely competitive for US MD applicants, with the historical DO and IMG accessibility narrowing.3

The honest read. Attainable, popular, and the conventional safe choice within radiology. The competitive event was the residency match.

Board: none. General ABR certification in diagnostic radiology.2

Compensation — the robust version

No compensation survey isolates abdominal radiology. This reasons from the parent field and the practice structure.

The parent anchor. Diagnostic radiology runs roughly $550,000–$575,000 total compensation, with associates at $350,000–$525,000, a median around $544,000–$590,000, and partners reaching $700,000 to $1.2 million and above.3 ⟳

Abdominal radiology sits close to the parent field, and the reasoning is that it essentially is the parent field. Body imaging is the largest component of general radiology practice, so a body radiologist's economics track general radiology's more closely than any other subspecialty's do.

What moves it up: volume. In productivity-based practices, body radiologists read a great deal, and abdominal CT is the highest-throughput study type in the specialty. And private-practice partnership is fully available, unlike in the hospital-confined subspecialties, so the partner tier that produces radiology's top figures is genuinely reachable.

What holds it down: no procedural premium of the sort interventional radiology commands, and no scarcity premium, since this is the most commonly held subspecialty in the field.

Teleradiology matters here as much as anywhere. Body reading is digital, asynchronous, and in constant demand, which makes it among the most remote-capable work in medicine and creates both geographic freedom and, for some, additional income.

Limited-data caveat: no MGMA, Doximity, or Medscape line for abdominal radiology was located, and the positioning is a structural inference. The parent distribution is sourced. Benchmark against the practice's RVU expectations, since throughput is the variable that moves this subspecialty's pay. ⟳

Lifestyle

  • Reading-room based with strong schedule control, the parent field's structural advantage.3
  • Among the best remote-work options in medicine. Body reading requires no patient presence, which makes hybrid and fully remote practice genuinely available.
  • Geographic flexibility is excellent, and teleradiology extends it further than almost any other field.
  • Call is the parent field's, and emergency abdominal CT is a large share of overnight radiology work, so a body radiologist is doing familiar work when covering nights.
  • The volume is the highest in radiology, and that is the defining feature of the day.
  • Little or no procedural component at most institutions, which some value as simplicity and others find leaves the day one-dimensional.

Lifestyle rating: 5/5. Controllable, remote-capable, geographically free, and call-light relative to clinical specialties, with sustained high volume as the real cost.

Wellbeing — the part to take seriously

No abdominal-radiology-specific wellbeing data exists, and Medscape's table stops at broad specialties, so what follows is inherited from the parent rather than measured here. Two instruments measure the parent field, and the larger and freely readable one is the AMA's 2025 Organizational Biopsy: it puts radiology at 45.2% against a 41.9% all-physician average. Medscape's 2024 report, which reaches this page through relays, gives 51% against a 49% average, placing radiology in the upper third of its table. Both read the same way: a little above the middle, with volume and RVU pressure named as the real strain, which lands hardest on this subspecialty.3 ⟳

Throughput is the defining occupational stress. This subspecialty has the highest study volume in radiology, and reading a large list against a clock, every day, for a career, is cognitively demanding in a way that is difficult to convey from outside. The parent field's burnout conversation is dominated by exactly this, and abdominal radiology is where it is felt most.

The incidental finding problem is a persistent low-grade weight. Every scan contains things nobody asked about, and the radiologist decides what to mention and what to recommend. Over-reporting generates anxiety, cost, and unnecessary procedures; under-reporting misses cancers. There is no comfortable equilibrium and the field argues about it continuously.

The compensating satisfaction is breadth and consequence. A body radiologist sees more pathology in a week than most clinicians see in a year, and the reports drive oncologic and surgical decisions directly. Practitioners describe the variety as what keeps it interesting despite the volume.

Isolation is a real feature. Body radiology has less procedural work and less scheduled patient or clinician contact than breast imaging or MSK, and a fully remote practice can be genuinely solitary. This is worth testing rather than assuming.

Career longevity is excellent, with no physical demands and a practice that can be moved remote or scaled down late in a career.

Who's in the field (demographics)

ACGME publishes fellow demographics for abdominal radiology; the practicing-workforce breakdown is where the data genuinely stops.

  • Women: 39.3% of abdominal radiology fellows, 22 of 56 in AY2024-25, against 29.2% of diagnostic radiology residents and 27% of practicing radiologists (2022). Note the small n and that 17.9% of the fellow row is unreported.43 ⟳
  • DO: parent radiology has historically been reachable, at 15.0% of filled PGY-2 positions in the 2026 Match, with the window narrowing.3 ⟳
  • IMG: 11.4% of filled PGY-2 positions, historically among the more accessible high-paying specialties.3 ⟳
  • School type among abdominal fellows runs the other way, and its frame matters. Of the 56 fellows in ACGME-accredited abdominal radiology programs in AY2024-25, 50.0% were international medical graduates and 3.6% osteopathic, against 37.5% US LCME graduates. Read it as a description of 13 accredited programs rather than of the field: body-imaging fellowships exist at essentially every academic center, most of them outside that accredited count, so the row cannot be assumed representative.4 ⟳
  • Underrepresented in medicine: no subspecialty figure available. ⟳

Culture, personality & the online stereotypes

Who gravitates here: radiology residents who wanted breadth and employability. The field draws people who like pathology across many organ systems, who are comfortable with high throughput, and who value being able to work anywhere. It is the conventional, sensible choice within radiology and it does not pretend otherwise. As always, plenty of people in the field do not fit any single mold.

The stereotypes. Community perception rather than fact, each with a kernel and an unfair edge:

  • "The safe fellowship." Accurate and generally meant kindly. Body training makes you employable everywhere, which is why so many residents choose it.
  • "A fellowship in what you already do." The sharpest criticism, since abdominal imaging is most of general radiology. The answer is that being genuinely good at the majority of the worklist is worth a year.
  • "Where the volume lives." True, and the main reason people move away from it later in a career.
  • "RADS all the way down." A reference to the structured reporting systems, which the field built more of than anyone else and which some find rigid and others regard as radiology's most important quality contribution.

What people say online (synthesized and paraphrased, not quotes): across physician and resident forums, abdominal reads as the default sensible choice. The dominant recurring theme is employability, with posters describing body training as the most portable credential in the specialty and the one that makes you welcome in any group. A second thread is volume, discussed as the real cost and the reason some people later shift toward a narrower subspecialty. A third is remote work, discussed enthusiastically, since body reading is entirely digital. A fourth is the structured reporting systems, with genuine disagreement about whether LI-RADS and PI-RADS improve care or add box-ticking. A fifth, quieter, is artificial intelligence, discussed with moderate concern, since high-volume CT is a plausible automation target though the breadth of abdominal pathology makes it a harder one than screening. The tone is practical.

Voices from the field. Paraphrased from published sources, with links to the originals:

  • ACGME accredits six diagnostic radiology subspecialties and abdominal radiology is one of them, at 13 programs in AY2024-25. What it carries no route to is an ABR subspecialty certificate.2

Why people choose it / why people leave

Why choose it: the most employable subspecialty in radiology, welcome in every practice setting · enormous breadth of pathology across many organ systems · reports that directly drive oncologic and surgical decisions · excellent remote-work potential and geographic freedom · full access to radiology's private-partnership income tier · the structured reporting systems, which give the field an unusual amount of intellectual infrastructure.

Why leave or avoid it: the highest study volume in radiology, which is the specialty's main source of strain · least differentiation from general practice, so the fellowship's marginal value is debated · little or no procedural work at most institutions · potential isolation, especially in remote practice · the unresolved incidental-finding problem · a fellowship that leads to no subspecialty certificate.

Best fit if: you want breadth rather than depth · you value employability and geographic freedom above differentiation · you are comfortable with high throughput · you want remote or hybrid work · oncologic and hepatobiliary imaging interest you.

Not for you if: high-volume reading would wear you down · you want procedures or patient contact · you want a scarce, differentiated credential · you would find reading in isolation difficult.

The FLI angle — Abdominal radiology for first-gen, low-income & immigrant students

Where it fits FLI realities well:

  • This is the most employable route in a specialty that has historically been one of the more accessible high-paying ones. Radiology ran 15.0% DO and 11.4% IMG of filled PGY-2 positions in the 2026 Match, and body training is welcome in every practice setting, so job security is about as high as medicine offers.3
  • Geographic freedom is exceptional. Teleradiology means body reading genuinely travels, so you can live near family rather than near a job. Very little else in this project offers that.
  • Full access to the partnership tier, which runs $700,000 to $1.2 million and above, unlike the hospital-confined subspecialties.3
  • The lifestyle is sustainable, with strong schedule control and no physical demands.
  • No professional network required. Body radiologists are hired on competence and availability across a very large market, which matters if you do not have connections to open doors.

Risks to name honestly:

  • The residency door is closing somewhat. Radiology has swung back to genuinely competitive for US MD applicants, and the parent profile warns the DO and IMG window is narrowing.3 If radiology is the goal, plan early rather than relying on historical accessibility.
  • PSLF fits poorly with the high-earning version. Private practice and teleradiology do not qualify; academic radiology does and pays less. In a specialty paying this well, aggressive repayment is usually the better answer, but decide deliberately.
  • Partnership requires time and a buy-in. Plan for the associate figure of $350,000–$525,000 in your early years.
  • Volume is the job, and it is the thing that burns people out. A practice paying at the top of the range generally expects throughput at the top of the range, and that is a decision about how you want to spend thirty years.
  • The automation question is real, though abdominal pathology's breadth makes it a harder target than screening mammography. Form a view rather than ignoring it.

Bottom line for FLI: the safest, most portable, most geographically free version of one of the better-paid careers in medicine, reached through a residency that has historically been among the more open high-income routes. What you accept is the highest reading volume in the specialty and the least differentiation from what every radiologist already does. For someone who needs reliable income and the freedom to live somewhere specific, that is a very good trade.

Fun facts

  • It is most of radiology. Abdominal imaging is the largest component of general radiology practice, which is why body-trained radiologists are welcome everywhere and why the fellowship is the conventional choice.
  • The field invented radiology's grammar. LI-RADS, PI-RADS, and O-RADS are all abdominal systems, and each turns a description into a management recommendation rather than an observation.
  • The hardest report is a vascular one. Determining whether a pancreatic tumor involves the mesenteric vessels decides whether the patient is operable, which makes it one of the most consequential single sentences in radiology.
  • Incidental findings are a discipline in themselves, with published follow-up guidelines, because a scan ordered for one thing routinely shows something else.
  • Overnight radiology leans on this. Emergency abdominal CT is a large and constant share of what call consists of, so a body radiologist covering nights is reading familiar studies.5
  • There is no ABR subspecialty certificate for abdominal radiology, and none for musculoskeletal, breast, or cardiothoracic radiology either.

Sources

Footnotes

  1. Clinical scope and fellowship content — oncologic staging and surveillance, hepatobiliary and pancreatic imaging, genitourinary and gynecologic imaging, bowel imaging, emergency abdominal imaging, structured reporting systems, and incidental finding management. Composite of published US abdominal imaging fellowship curricula: University of Michigan Abdominal Imaging Fellowship (https://medschool.umich.edu/departments/radiology/education/fellowships-training-programs/abdominal-imaging), University of Virginia Abdominal Imaging Fellowship (https://med.virginia.edu/radiology/education/fellowship-program/abdominal-imaging/), George Washington Abdominal Imaging (https://radiology.smhs.gwu.edu/fellowships/abdominal-imaging) and its combined abdominal and musculoskeletal imaging fellowship (https://radiology.smhs.gwu.edu/fellowships/combined-abdominal-musculoskeletal-imaging-fellowship), accessed 2026. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  2. Accreditation and board status. ACGME accredits six diagnostic radiology subspecialties, with accredited program counts for AY2024-25: abdominal radiology 13, musculoskeletal radiology 23, neuroendovascular intervention 5, neuroradiology 93, nuclear radiology 19, pediatric radiology 48. ABR issues subspecialty certificates for neuroradiology, nuclear radiology, pediatric radiology and pain medicine only (interventional radiology is a PRIMARY certificate, IR/DR, rather than a subspecialty one), so abdominal radiology fellows sit for general ABR certification and no subspecialty examination. ACGME, Data Resource Book, Academic Year 2024-2025 (https://www.acgme.org/globalassets/pfassets/publicationsbooks/2024-2025_acgme_databook_document.pdf); ABR subspecialty certification (https://www.theabr.org/get-certified/subspecialties/). Corrected 2026-08-17: this page previously said ACGME accredits only three diagnostic radiology fellowships and that abdominal radiology is non-accredited, in six places including the dashboard. The claim was sourced to a composite of academic department fellowship listings rather than to ACGME, and the data book carries an abdominal radiology row. The same wrong count was live in the musculoskeletal radiology and breast imaging profiles, each citing the others as corroboration. ⟳ Corrected again 2026-08-17, same day: the first correction named interventional radiology as ABR's fourth subspecialty certificate. It is not one — IR/DR is a PRIMARY certificate — and the fourth subspecialty is pain medicine. ABR's own subspecialties page lists "neuroradiology, nuclear radiology, pain medicine, and pediatric radiology." ⟳ ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  3. Parent-field figures, taken from the diagnostic radiology profile on this site: typical comp ~$550k–$575k, with associates ~$350k–$525k, median ~$544k–$590k, and partners $700k–$1.2M+; 5 years of training (1 intern + 4 DR) and ~13 years from the start of college, with fellowship near-universal; competitiveness high and rising, having swung back to genuinely competitive for US MDs; strong schedule control and the best remote options in medicine. Burnout: Medscape Physician Burnout & Depression Report 2024 puts diagnostic radiology at 51% against a 49% all-physician average (n=9,226, fielded July–October 2023). The primary report is paywalled and returns HTTP 402, so the specialty row comes from two independent relays that agree row for row: Healthgrades Pro (https://resources.healthgrades.com/pro/the-most-and-least-burned-out-physicians-by-specialty) and Advisory Board (https://www.advisory.com/daily-briefing/2024/01/31/physician-burnout). Corrected 2026-08-17: this footnote carried a note that "the ~36% also carried here is from an earlier Medscape edition on 2022 data; this page uses the 2024 figure." No ~36% figure appears anywhere on this page; it was inherited verbatim from the diagnostic radiology profile, where it is the 2022 figure that page previously led with. Corrected 2026-08-17: the dashboard and the wellbeing lede led with Medscape's relayed 51% while this footnote carried the AMA row. Because this site leads with AMA wherever it publishes a row, the AMA figure now leads in both places and Medscape stays as the ranking instrument. Women practicing, ~27%: AAMC, "Women are changing the face of medicine in America" (2022 data), https://www.aamc.org/news/women-are-changing-face-medicine-america. Women in residency, 29.2%: ACGME, Data Resource Book, Academic Year 2024-2025, Table C.21, https://www.acgme.org/globalassets/pfassets/publicationsbooks/2024-2025_acgme_databook_document.pdf. Corrected 2026-08-13; this page previously carried "~27–28% of residents," an inherited estimate with no source behind it. AAMC excludes specialties under 2,500 active physicians from its workforce table, so no practicing abdominal radiology figure is published; the fellow figures are in 4. DO and IMG shares of filled PGY-2 positions: NRMP, Results and Data: 2026 Main Residency Match, May 2026, Table 2, https://www.nrmp.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Main_Match_Results_and_Data-2026.pdf — of 1,066 filled radiology-diagnostic PGY-2 positions, 144 DO seniors and 16 DO graduates make 15.0%, and 30 US IMGs and 91 non-US IMGs make 11.4%. Corrected 2026-08-17: the dashboard, the demographics bullets and the FLI section carried ~14% and ~11%, which this footnote already recorded as superseded while the body kept printing the old pair. ⟳ A second, freely readable instrument: the AMA's 2025 Organizational Biopsy (~19,000 physicians, 38 states) puts Radiology at 45.2% against a 41.9% all-physician average, https://www.ama-assn.org/practice-management/physician-health/these-9-physician-specialties-report-highest-burnout-rates. It is primary where Medscape reaches this page through relays, and its baseline sits seven points below Medscape's 49% — the two never belong in the same sentence, and a cross-specialty rank must name which survey it comes from. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8 ↩9 ↩10

  4. Fellow demographics. ACGME, Data Resource Book, Academic Year 2024-2025, Table C.21, Number of Active Residents by Specialty and Subspecialty and Sex — abdominal radiology: 13 programs, 56 active fellows, 22 female (39.3%), 24 male (42.9%), 10 not reported (17.9%) (https://www.acgme.org/globalassets/pfassets/publicationsbooks/2024-2025_acgme_databook_document.pdf). School type comes from Table C.15 of the same book, Number of Active Residents by Specialty and Subspecialty and Medical School Type — abdominal radiology: 56 fellows, 21 US LCME (37.5%), 28 international (50.0%), 2 osteopathic (3.6%), 5 unknown (8.9%). Corrected 2026-08-17: the demographics section inherited the parent residency's DO and IMG shares on the reasoning that no subspecialty figure is published. Table C.15 publishes one, and it runs opposite to the parent on both axes, so it is now stated alongside its sampling frame: the book counts accredited programs, and abdominal radiology has 13 of them against a much larger unaccredited fellowship pool, so the row describes the accredited slice. ⟳ Corrected 2026-08-17: the page previously said no abdominal radiology row exists in Table C.21 and that the figure was genuinely unpublished. The row is there. The AAMC threshold that excludes small specialties applies to the practicing-workforce table, not to this one. ⟳ ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  5. Emergency abdominal CT volume. Corrected 2026-08-17: this page asserted three times, uncited, that acute abdominal CT is the most commonly ordered emergency imaging study, and that superlative carried the call and lifestyle argument. The published emergency-imaging series run against it, so the superlative is gone and the sentences now claim volume only. A ten-year emergency-department series at University Hospital Basel counted 113,240 chest radiographs against 59,101 head CTs, 17,687 abdomen-pelvis CTs and 16,626 chest CTs, so chest radiography and head CT each outnumber abdominal CT there. That is a single non-US center, offered not as a US figure but as enough to retire a superlative nothing supported. Kempter F, Heye T, Vosshenrich J, et al., "Trends in CT examination utilization in the emergency department during and after the COVID-19 pandemic," BMC Medical Imaging 2024;24:283, https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11492618/. ⟳ ↩

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