Cumulative radiation exposure shows increased cancer risk for emergency department patients
According to a new study, patients are receiving estimated doses of radiation from medical diagnostic imaging studies, such as CT (or 'CAT') scans, that may be detrimental to their long term health, putting them at an increased risk of developing cancer. To date, emergency physicians have not been made aware of the cumulative amount of radiation that their patients receive. In fact they currently have no way to know or estimate any given patient's cumulative dose. A new study hopes to quantify and further explore these concerns.
Led by Timothy B. Bullard, M.D., M.B.A of the Orlando Regional Medical Centre (ORMC), the cross-sectional study examined the amount of ionising radiation that a random selection of patients received over a five-year period at ORMC and Washington Hospital Centre in Washington, D.C. The study is the first to estimate the total cumulative radiation dosage delivered to a population from multiple diagnostic imaging modalities during a defined period of time.
Patients had an average cumulative estimated effective radiation dose of 45.0 milliseiverts, with CT scans and nuclear medicine studies contributing the most radiation. Twelve percent of the sample population was estimated to have received 100 or more millisieverts of radiation, a value that exceeds the accepted threshold of safety for exposure to low level ionising radiation. If study patients are representative of the general emergency department population, then a substantial number of people may be placed at increased risk of developing cancer over their lifetime from diagnostic imaging studies as a result of these exposures.
'Our research hopefully will affect the habits of physicians who routinely order medical imaging diagnostic studies in their practices,' says Bullard. 'We also hope that our research will further promote the need for electronic medical records with portability and encourage the development of an individual patient cumulative exposure estimate tool.'
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