Multiple CT Scans in Kids Triples Cancer Risk, But Overall Risk is Low
CBS News – (June 7, 2013) Kids who get two or three CT scans before they turn 15 triple their risk of developing brain cancer, new research suggests. The study also found kids who get five to 10 scans triple their risk for developing leukemia. However the researchers behind the new study say the absolute risk of developing cancer is still small and probably outweighed by the reason the child needs the CT scan in the first place. But study adds to a growing amount of research focusing on radiation risk for kids. The use of CT scans has risen rapidly since they were introduced 30 years ago. For children, they’re used to evaluate head, neck or spine injuries or neurological disorders. A study last year found the number of kids who were given CT scans in an emergency room visit has risen five-fold between 1995 and 2008, from about 330,000 annual visits to 1.65 million. For the study, published in the June 6 issue of The Lancet, international researchers studied nearly 180,000 patients under age 22 who had a CT scan in British hospitals between 1985 and 2002. The patients were tracked until 2008, and researchers found 74 of them were diagnosed with leukemia while 135 had brain tumors. The scientists didn’t measure the number of scans, which were mostly of the head, but examined data measuring radiation doses from the scans. That’s because the amount of radiation received by body parts such as the brain and bone marrow depends on the age and size of the patient. The children who later developed leukemia or brain tumors were compared to a group of people who got a very low dose of radiation to the same parts of their bodies. “CT scans are very useful, but they also have relatively high doses of radiation, when compared to X-rays,” said study author Dr. Mark Pearce, an epidemiologist at Newcastle University. He said CT scans were warranted in most situations but more needed to be done to reduce the amount of radiation. Pearce emphasized these were rare diseases and that the higher risk was still small. The risk of leukemia in children is about 1 in 2,000, so having several CT scans would bump that up to about 1 in 600. “What we definitely don’t want is parents saying, ‘No, I don’t want my child to have a CT scan,’ when he absolutely needs it,” Pearce told TIME. “Although there is a tripling of risk, we are talking about a tripling of something small, and three times something small is still something small,” he said. “We just need to look into making sure the scans are justified.” The researchers noted that modern CT scanners give off about 80 percent less radiation than the older machines used in the study. Even at low doses, the radiation can damage genes that may increase the patient’s risk of developing cancer later. The study was paid for by the U.S. National Cancer Institute and the U.K. Department of Health. In the U.K., laws already require radiation from medical scans be kept as low as possible. In the U.S., the Food and Drug Administration is pushing manufacturers to design new scanners to minimize radiation exposure for the youngest patients, HealthPop reported last month. The agency also posted advice on the Internet urging parents to speak up when a doctor orders a scan – to ask if it’s the best option or if there’s a radiation-free alternative – and to keep a list of their child’s medical scans that they should pull out every time a doctor considers ordering one. A study last year...
Read MoreVirtual Phantoms Successfully Completes Beta Testing in 10 U.S. Hospitals
Albany, NY – (May 15, 2013) Virtual Phantoms, Inc. today announced the successful conclusion of beta testing for its revolutionary radiation dose exposure software, VirtualDose™CT. The testing was conducted at 10 major U.S. hospitals over the past 6 months as part of a “fast-track” STTR project with The National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to determine whether the product is performing to the level of accuracy and ease-of-use required by medical physicists and radiologists. According to company officials, the reactions to the product were very positive and Virtual Phantoms Inc. will now finalize the software for commercial release in either 2013 or 2014. VirtualDoseCT is a solution to the growing problem of optimizing radiation dosage during CT examinations. The state-of-the art for many years has been to use an “average” human body model to determine radiation exposure doses. But such models do not allow for the dramatic differences in size and shape for children at different ages, for pregnant women at different gestational levels, or for obese individuals of all ages. The new software uses a well-tested family of body 3D models, known as “phantoms,” along with sophisticated simulation software, to get a more precise dose mapping for each organ in a broad range of body types. “American Board of Radiology has called for better ways to manage radiation exposure from CT imaging and to further improve patient safety,” explained Dr. George Xu, professor of nuclear engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a fellow of American Association of Medical Physicists, American Nuclear Society, and Health Physics Society, who served as the principal investigator of the project. “Supported by the NIH as “fast-track” STTR project confirmed our belief that solutions offered by VirtualDoseCT were considered by the NIH as a national priority in addressing the needs for CT dose management because the software is designed to allow radiologists and medical physicists to ultimately optimize CT imaging at the organ dose level, instead of traditional dose indices that unrelated to specific patient.” Although CT imaging has been proven extremely effective as a diagnostic tool, repeated exposure to ionizing radiation is known to associate with a potential risk of adverse effects. In light of rapidly increasing use of CT scanners in recent years, national and international organizations have issued warnings about the consequences of unjustified CT radiation doses and, in the U.S., California and Texas have passed the first laws requiring hospitals to record the CT radiation dose for each patient. To address the growing problem, American Board of Radiology (ABR) has launched two public campaigns called “Image Wisely” and “Image Gently.” “The trend toward increasing regulation in CT exposure is expected to accelerate in the near future. Tools such as VirtualDose are essential,” Dr. Xu explained. “We are now moving rapidly to ready the product for the marketplace.” VirtualDoseCT was developed under a strategic consortium with Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) and the University of Florida (UF) using their “virtual patients” technologies derived from research activities previously funded by NIH and other agencies. The overall goal of this project has been to develop VirtualDoseCT for radiologists, radiological technologists, medical physicists, regulators, manufacturers and researchers who need to calculate and analyze patient radiation doses from x-ray computed tomography (CT) examinations. solves the need for accurate CT X-ray radiation dose tracking and reporting by providing anatomically correct 3D patient modeling. Virtual Phantoms, Inc. (VPI), www.virtualphantoms.com, was founded in 2009 by faculty members from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, in collaboration with the University of Florida, using the “Virtual Patient” technologies developed from nearly 20 years research at RPI...
Read MoreNIH Funded “Virtual Patient” Research Receives Flurry of Media Attention
Albany, NY – (April 15, 2012) VirtualDose™CT, the product of many years of “virtual patient” research funded by the National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation, and Department of Energy, received a flurry of media attention this spring that brought the technology to the attention of the general public for the first time. A Wall Street Journal article and video in December were soon followed by stories in U.S. News and World Reports, MedicalPhysicsWeb, MedicalXpress, DailyRx Relevant Health News, MyhealthNewsDaily, SciGuru, and Science News, as well as foreign journals. What particularly caught the public’s attention was the idea that obese people are getting exposed to more radiation when they receive CT scans. Thanks to the virtual patient technology embodied in VirtualDoseCT, this long-standing problem can now be addressed. It solves the radiologist’s need for accurate x-ray CT radiation dose tracking and reporting by providing anatomically correct 3D patient modeling. The Web-based solution revolutionizes the way organ doses are calculated for health physics applications. Using a well-tested family of anatomically correct phantoms, revolutionary GPU-based Monte Carlo simulation, and innovative Software as a Service (SaaS) programming techniques, it permits radiation health professionals to obtain highly accurate images with less radiation. VirtualDoseCT was developed under a strategic consortium with Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) and the University of Florida (UF) using their “virtual patients” technologies derived from research activities previously funded by NIH and other agencies. The overall goal of this project has been to develop VirtualDoseCT for radiologists, radiological technologists, medical physicists, regulators, manufacturers and researchers who need to calculate and analyze patient radiation doses from x-ray computed tomography (CT) examinations. solves the need for accurate CT X-ray radiation dose tracking and reporting by providing anatomically correct 3D patient modeling. The Web-based solution will be deployed in beta trials at 10 major U.S. hospitals later this year before being made commercially available in 2013. Virtual Phantoms, Inc. was founded in 2009 by faculty members from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, in collaboration with the University of Florida, using the “Virtual Patient technologies developed from nearly 20 years research at RPI and UF in the field of nuclear and radiological engineering. Combining a large collection of anatomically accurate models of patients of various ages and sizes and sophisticated “Monte Carlo” simulation methods originally developed for nuclear weapons research at Los Alamos in the 1940s, VPI is recognized as a world leader in the modeling of ionizing radiation, radiation safety, and medical/occupational radiation...
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