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A new study by the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements reports that in 2006, the U.S. population was exposed to seven times more medical ionizing radiation than in the early 1980s.
Children’s Hospital Boston’s Radiology Department routinely "child-sizes" the amount of radiation kids receive during computed tomography (CT) scans and other X-ray based studies.
Because most imaging equipment is designed for adults, some institutions don’t use dose-reduction techniques for young patients, whose rapidly dividing cells are more susceptible to damage. Michael Callahan, MD, CT division chief, and Keith Strauss, MSc, director of Radiology Physics and Engineering, are leaders in a national campaign to change that. They helped develop ImageGently.org, which provides educational materials for physicians and radiation-reduction protocols for hospitals.
Nuclear medicine and other modalities use ionizing radiation, too, although in lower amounts. In every case, the hospital is committed to keeping radiation exposure low while searching for ways to further reduce dosing.
Several other pediatric radiologists at Children’s are tackling this issue. Valerie Ward, MD, MPH, Strauss and others established that pulsed fluoroscopy yields images of the same quality as those obtained by the continuous-beam method, so the hospital made the pulsed method the norm. In some situations, radiation can be avoided altogether. In inflammatory bowel disease, for instance, radiologists Laureen Sena, MD, and Jeannette Perez-Rossello, MD, have perfected the use of fast imaging sequences in MR to "freeze" the movement of the bowel. This lets physicians avoid or minimize the use of CT as they treat conditions like Crohn’s disease. In addition, Jeanne Chow, MD, is using MR urography to better understand the causes of hydronephrosis.
More information: Kathy Clute at 978-369-9776
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