OBJECTIVE. In view of increasing concern about radiation dose, this article aims to provide a summary of radiation doses in neuroradiologic applications of cone-beam CT.

CONCLUSION. The conventional wisdom that cone-beam CT incurs a much lower radiation dose than MDCT may not be uniformly true, especially in intraoperative use if operators are tempted to overuse the 3D imaging capabilities. The emerging nature of cone-beam CT warrants extra caution to avoid overexposure of patients.