nuclear-news

Medical experts concerned about medical and dental radiation

How many imaging scans are too many? By  Ben Sutherly, The Columbus Dispatch Sunday July 29, 2012  Cumulative radiation exposure has been shown to cause cancer. And thathas the pediatric-care community more carefully weighing whether the benefits of medical imaging justify the radiation risk in children.Children are far more sensitive to radiation than adults. And they might receive too great a dose if their smaller body size isn’t factored into the scanning process, according to the National Cancer Institute.The Alliance for Radiation Safety in Pediatric Imaging was formed five years ago after a group of pediatric radiologists noted
that some hospitals used adult-size doses of radiation on children, said Dr. Marilyn Goske, the alliance’s chairwoman and a radiologist at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center.“If you can get the picture using a lower dose and still make a diagnosis, that would be
best,” Goske said.
Doctors are especially concerned about CT scans. They can be valuable
diagnostic tools, but their use has soared in recent decades. About 7
million CT scans are performed on children each year in the United
States, and that number is increasing at a rate of 10 percent each
year, according to the Alliance for Radiation Safety.

Such scans account for 12 percent of diagnostic radiological
procedures in large U.S. hospitals but likely are responsible for 49
percent of the U.S. population’s collective radiation dose.

“For 20 to 30 years, it went rampant,” said Dr. Paul Casamassimo, the
chief of dentistry at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, who advocates
for less-frequent use of dental X-rays. As a result, “ What we have is
a bunch of people in our country and other countries exposed to large
doses of radiation.”The risk of cancer associated with CT scans is
small, resulting in one case of cancer for every 500 to 1,000 patients
scanned. The alliance estimates that for any one person, the risk of
death from cancer is about 1 in 5.“The risk is cumulative, however,
and each subsequent CT scan will increase the risk accordingly,” the
alliance said in literature for its new “Image Gently” campaign.

Following simple guidelines can minimize unnecessary CT scans, local
medical and dental experts said. During the past decade,
sports-medicine experts have adopted the “Ottawa Ankle Rules,” which
hold that if a person can put full weight on an ankle within minutes
of injuring it, there’s likely not a significant fracture, and, hence,
little need for an X-ray, said Dr. Joseph Ruane, the medical director
of OhioHealth’s Spine, Sport and Joint Center.Before those guidelines
were put into use, about 15 percent of X-rays showed a fracture, he
said.

In most cases, MRIs have replaced CT and bone scans, he said. MRIs do
not expose patients to ionizing radiation but tend to be more
expensive than CT scans.

Similarly, whether they’re adults or children, dental patients should
not be subjected to regular or even annual X-rays unless dentists are
tracking documented cases of decay, Casamassimo said. “Every family,
every parent, every individual should ask their dentist, ‘Is this
X-ray necessary?’ ”…..
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2012/07/29/health/how-many-imaging-scans-are-too-many.html

July 30, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | health, USA