Re: Children may get too much radiation in CT scan

[Chuck Pickering <cpickeri@usc.edu>]

I was somewhat surprised when I recently talked with a number of colleagues 
about children participating in research protocols involving the use of 
x-ray procedures. These were normal healthy kids, some infants. In many 
cases, very little scrutiny was given to the risk/benefit ratio (my 
opinion). At our institution our radiation safety committee has taken a 
very careful approach to evaluating these cases. Don't get me wrong, when 
there is a medical need for a CT scan or other procedure, these procedures 
provided valuable information to the clinician and the benefit clearly 
outweighs the risk. CT however, does deliver a large dose, no matter how 
you look at it, and there has to be some increased risk no matter what the 
shape of the dose response curve.

When it comes to children I think we need to be extra careful. I recommend 
reading Pierce and Preston's article from Radiation Research 154, 178-186 
(2000). A quote from that paper states, "one of the important things 
learned from the RERF investigations is that solid cancer radiation risks 
persist even 50 years after exposure. An adequate description is that, 
given sex and age at exposure, an acute radiation exposure increases normal 
age-specific solid cancer rates by a dose-dependent factor throughout life."

Chuck Pickering, RSO
University of Southern California

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