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US FDA Urges Review Of Safety Protocols For CT Scans
The alert follows reports that patients at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles were exposed to high doses of radiation from CT brain scans used to diagnose strokes.
Over an 18-month period, 206 patients received radiation doses that were approximately eight times the expected level. Instead of receiving the expected dose of 0.5 Gy (maximum) to the head, these patients received 3-4 Gy. In some cases, this excessive dose resulted in hair loss and erythema, the agency said in its alert.
About 40% of the patients at the Cedars centre lost patches of hair as a result of the overdoses, a hospital spokesman said.
While this event involved a single kind of diagnostic test at one facility, the magnitude of these overdoses and their impact on the affected patients were significant, the FDA said.
This situation may reflect more widespread problems with CT quality assurance programs and may not be isolated to this particular facility or this imaging procedure (CT brain perfusion). If patient doses are higher than the expected level, but not high enough to produce obvious signs of radiation injury, the problem may go undetected and unreported, putting patients at increased risk for long-term radiation effects.
Patients should follow their doctors recommendations for receiving CT scans. While unnecessary radiation exposure should be avoided, a medically-needed CT scan has benefits that outweigh the radiation risks, FDA counselled.
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