Dose reduction making headlines
MITA Smart Initiative
Promoting patient safety and enhancing the quality of medical imaging technology with MITA Smart Standards.
MITA Smart Dose CT
The MITA Smart Dose standard offers healthcare providers a reference to identify important tools to optimize and manage radiation dose delivery when using computed tomography (CT) equipment. MITA Smart Dose, or XR-29 Standard Attributes on Computed Tomography (CT) Equipment Related to Dose Optimization and Management, bundles four key dose optimization features to ensure that compliant CT equipment produces high-quality diagnostic images while supporting patient safety. Read more.
View NBC Nightly News report on radiation and children.
By Eric Barnes, AuntMinnie.com staff writer
February 5, 2015 -- In a major victory for individuals at high risk for lung cancer, the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) on Thursday released its final decision memo on CT lung cancer screening.
When to question CT scans and X-rays
Radiation from these tests can increase your cancer risk
The surprising dangers of CT scans and X-rays
Patients are often exposed to cancer-causing radiation for little medical reason, a Consumer Reports investigation finds
Proposed Decision Memo for Screening for Lung Cancer with Low Dose Computed Tomography (LDCT) (CAG-00439N)
The Reading Room
Radiation dose legislation: Is your state next?
New Texas radiation rule takes effect May 1
By Eric Barnes, AuntMinnie.com staff writer
March 28, 2013 --Hoping to avoid the rash of radiation overexposures that shook California radiology like an earthquake a few years back, the state of Texas has decided to implement its own radiation exposure rule beginning May 1.
Unlike the California law, however, Texas will administer its new regime as an administrative directive by the Texas Department of State Health Services.
We Are Giving Ourselves Cancer
By RITA F. REDBERG and REBECCA SMITH-BINDMAN JAN. 30, 2014
DESPITE great strides in prevention and treatment, cancer rates remain stubbornly high and may soon surpass heart disease as the leading cause of death in the United States. Increasingly, we and many other experts believe that an important culprit may be our own medical practices: We are silently irradiating ourselves to death.
Cancer fears prompt call to cut hospitals' CT scan radiation levels
Risk is “low” but one in 2,000 will develop a new cancer after an abdominal scan¨ warns government advisory body
The Guardian, Thursday 14 August 2014
Sarah Boseley, health editor
Radiation doses used in CT hospital scanners to diagnose injuries and diseases should be reduced to the lowest possible level, to avoid potential harm, a government advisory body has warned.
Diagnostic Imaging Services Requirements: Update Delayed Implementation
Revised Timeline for Implementation of New and Revised Diagnostic Imaging Standards
May 21, 2014
In January 2014, The Joint Commission published new and revised requirements that address risks associated with diagnostic imaging for accredited hospitals, critical access hospitals, and ambulatory care organizations that provide diagnostic imaging services¨ including those ambulatory organizations that have already achieved Advanced Diagnostic Imaging certification. The changes were intended to be effective July 1¨ 2014¨ with additional changes to be phased in by 2015.
Three Game-Changing Studies for Imaging
in Sports Medicine
Jessica Joan Orchard, John William Orchard,
Trader Grenfell, Adam Mitchell
Br J Sports Med. 2014;48(8):677-678.
Introduction
In 2001, Brenner et al found that there was a significant increase in lifetime cancer risk attributable to radiation from pediatric CT scans relative to adult CT scans. The Image Gently Campaign by the Alliance for Radiation Safety in Pediatric Imaging has aimed to raise public awareness of “opportunities to promote radiation protection in the imaging of children.” It is thought that young people are at higher risk because cell division is fast and organs are therefore more sensitive to radiation at a younger age.
Dose can still be reduced even when
no upgrade is possible
RAD Magazine
Andy Holley | April 2014
Patient does from medical imaging, particularly CT, SPECT/CT and PETCT, is currently a hot topic in the UK with most major manufacturers implementing low dose protocols on their latest models.
CT Scans on Children Worry Experts
US News | Updated June 10, 2013
by Shirley S. Wang
Fewer CT scans were done on American children in recent years after a steep increase from 1996 to 2005, a new study showed, but medical experts said they remain concerned that too may youngsters are being unnecessarily exposed to the procedure's harmful radiation.
BMJ: Megastudy links pediatric CT to higher cancer rates
By Eric Barnes, AuntMinnie.com staff writer
May 23, 2013 -- The largest study to probe the effects of ionizing radiation since the atomic bomb survivor studies shows that cancer incidence does rise among younger patients -- although only in small amounts -- in the years following their exposure to CT scans, according to an Australian article published May 21 in BM.
