david brenner - Panel: Healthy hearts should steer clear of CT scans

A scientific panel led by a Jacksonville doctor said today that the risks outweigh the benefits of exposing symptom-free patients to radiation to screen for heart problems.

"It seems to make so much sense to be able to look at a patient's heart arteries and plaque before it causes problems," Thomas Gerber, a Mayo Clinic Jacksonville cardiology professor, said in an interview.

The review was sponsored by the American Heart Association and was published online today in the organization's journal Circulation.

The odds of dying from cancer caused by the typical dose of radiation during a cardiac scan using computed tomography (CT) is one in 2,000 people. That was large enough to persuade the 13-member panel to recommend against the test's use in cases involving healthy, "low risk" patients.

David Brenner, a radiation biophysics professor with the Columbia University Medical Center in New York City, agreed with the recommendation.

"It is a small risk, but as more and more paitents get CTs on a population basis it becomes a public health issue," said Brenner, who wasn't involved with the panel.

Since 1980, the collective dose of medical-related radiation has bolted more than seven-fold in the United States, according to background material in the panel's report. Cardiac CTs accounted for about 1.5 percent of the radiation used on in CT exams patients in 2006; CTs are commonly used on the chest, abdomen and pelvis.

But the panel said it expects the percentage of cardiac uses to grow as the availability of CT devices grows.


Source: jacksonville.com