![]() ![]() ![]() That will require hospitals to feed dose data to a central computer run by the radiology group.What is the radiation dose to a patient who has three chest CTs in a year? What is the risk? To cut down on unnecessarily high radiation doses, Thrall says, the College of Radiology is also developing an "alarm" system that will alert hospitals when their CT scan exceeds an acceptable dose. "That means we're doing fewer scans per person," he says. Instead of an annual growth rate of 12 percent in CT scans, it's now about 1 percent, lower than the hospital's annual growth in patient load. "Our experience over the last five years has been rather phenomenal," Thrall says. A computer program feeds back an "appropriateness score." A low score indicates the test is unlikely to be necessary. He says at his institution, the Massachusetts General Hospital, doctors who order a CT scan or other imaging study must list the reason. James Thrall, chairman of the American College of Radiology, agrees. Also some fancier CT studies, involving multiple "slices" through the body in a single examination, can be replaced by simpler CT tests, conventional X-rays or tests such as ultrasound or MRI that don't involve radiation.Īnother way is to reduce the amount of radiation involved in each scan.ĭr. Smith-Bindman says radiation exposures can be cut substantially by eliminating unnecessary CT scans - both initial scans and repeat or follow-up scans now often done routinely. It's especially important for younger adults and parents to ask the questions. She says patients should start asking doctors if they really need a particular CT scan, and if so, whether it can be done with minimal radiation exposure. and the potential for harm outweighs the benefits." "In most cases it does, and we should be using CT scanning in those cases. "I think we need to pause and think about whether the extra information really helps us make a diagnosis," Smith-Bindman says. She adds that a single CT scan can deliver about the same radiation dose that survivors of the atomic blasts at Nagasaki and Hiroshima endured. "But a CT scan can be comparable to 500 transcontinental flights." "It's often said that the radiation dose of a chest X-ray is comparable to flying across the continent," Smith-Bindman says, referring to natural radiation exposures at high altitudes. The number of scans has increased at a rate of 10 percent a year recently, jumping from 3 million scans in 1980 to more than 70 million a year today. Smith-Bindman says neither doctors nor patients appreciate the amount of radiation exposure that U.S. Rebecca Smith-Bindman, a radiologist at the University of California at San Francisco who led that study. "For the same body part, the same patient with abdominal pain being evaluated for possible cancer, there can be a profoundly different radiation dose," says Dr. That means many unsuspecting patients are getting considerably more radiation than they need for an adequate CT image. But a CT scan can be comparable to 500 transcontinental flights. It's often said that the radiation dose of a chest X-ray is comparable to flying across the continent. Rita Redberg, editor of Archives of Internal Medicine, which is publishing the paper in this week's issue. "Physicians cannot be complacent about the hazards of radiation or we risk creating a public health time bomb," says Dr. Nearly 15,000 of those cancers could be fatal.ĬT-related cancers will impose a similar burden each year - unless the number of scans and the radiation dose-per-scan can be reduced. But now researchers are warning that the radiation patients get each time computerized tomography is used to detect injuries and disease will cause thousands of extra cancers in coming years.Ī new study from the National Cancer Institute projects 29,000 excess cancers from the 72 million CT scans that Americans got in 2007 alone. But some CT scans, particularly abdominal scans and scans involving multiple "slices," expose the patient to high levels of radiation.ĭoctors love the detailed pictures created by CT scans. This CAT (computerized axial tomography) scan allows doctors a detailed, inside view of the human head. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |