Increasing radiation risks to patients from imaging procedures
Within few days of this month there have been at least 2 papers published indicating growing use of imaging procedures that involve relatively higher radiation dose to patients. The first one pertained to data from 20 developing countries published in AJR and next one in New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) that has just been published showing growing use of imaging procedures in the United States.
In the NEJM paper, Dr. Reza Fazel and colleagues estimated that at least four million Americans under age 65 are exposed to high doses of radiation each year from medical imaging tests. They classified annual effective doses as low (≤3 mSv), moderate (>3 to 20 mSv), high (>20to 50 mSv), or very high (>50 mSv). During the study period, 655,613 enrollees (68.8%) under went at least one imaging procedure associated with radiation exposure.The mean (±SD) cumulative effective dose from imaging procedures was 2.4±6.0 mSv per enrollee per year; however, a wide distribution was noted, with a median effective dose of 0.1 mSv per enrollee per year (inter quartile range, 0.0 to1.7).
In the editorial in same issue of the NEJM, Dr. Michael Lauer indicates lack of high level evidence of benefit from so many imaging procedures that a patient has to undergo, whereas informs that cumulative radiation exposure can produce real harm, even if it may not be possible to trace adverse outcomes to individual patients who have been exposed.
Links to stories
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/27/health/research/27scan.html
http://www.auntminnie.com/index.asp?Sec=sup&Sub=cto&Pag=dis&ItemId=87053&wf=3273&d=1
