Medical Physics Resource

["Sue M. Dupre" <DUPRE%PUCC.bitnet@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu>]

I just received a call from a woman in Indiana who is looking for information
about diagnostic radiation tests her one year old child has been through.  She
called Princeton only because she had no idea about how to seek out the infor-
mation she wants and she made a stab in the dark.  I would like to point her
to the right person, but that person is not me - no major medical facility here
and I'm not trained in medical physics.

Her child is severely asthmatic and nearly died over the Christmas holidays.
Since then the child has received a head CAT scan and something like 20 chest
x-rays.  Although the woman apparently is not formally trained in radiological-
ly related fields, she says she's read a lot and appears to be conversant with
basic radiation terminology.  Her immediate concern involved the CAT scan and
what sort of dose the internal blood-forming organs would have received as a
result of internal scatter from the head scan.  She had been told not to worry
about the brain scan because of the radioresistance of the nervous system but
later thought about the possibility of internal scatter.  I gather that part of
her concern has to do with whether she should be concerned about limiting diag-
nostic tests.  She says that every time her child is taken into the emergency
room, a chest x-ray is immediately ordered and she is concerned about the cumu-
lative effect of the many emergency room visits she may ultimately face and
whether the chest x-rays should be limited to the more severe episodes.

I would like to provide her with the names and phone numbers of a few people
who would be willing to discuss this with her.  Are any of you willing or can
you suggest other sources of help for her?  Please let me know ASAP.  Thanks
very much.

Sue Dupre/Princeton University
dupre@princeton.edu  or   (609) 258-6252