Pharmacy News EU

Feb. 18The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently announced an initiative to reduce unnecessary radiation exposure from medical imaging and plans to hold public hearings to get input on requirements.
The agency said it wants to establish a section on its Web site that will allow patients to track their own medical imaging history and share it with their physicians, especially when it may not be included in medical records. "The amount of radiation Americans are exposed to from medical imaging has dramatically increased over the past 20 years," said Dr. Jeffrey Shuren, director of the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health. "The goal of FDA’s initiative is to support the benefits associated with medical imaging while minimizing the risks."
The initiative follows actions and investigations surrounding findings, that over an 18-month period, more than 200 patients had been exposed to excessive radiation at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. The patients were undergoing CT brain scans to look for stroke damage. Three other Los Angeles hospitals late last year were also found to be administering excessive radiation doses for the same scan.
The FDA said its initiative would reduce unnecessary radiation exposure from three types of medical imaging procedures: computed tomography (CT), nuclear medicine studies and fluoroscopy. "These procedures are the greatest contributors to total radiation exposure within the U.S. population and use much higher radiation
doses than other radiographic procedures, such as standard X-rays, dental X-rays, and mammography," the FDA said in a statement. For example, the radiation dose associated with a CT abdomen scan is the same as the dose from about 400 chest X-rays.
The FDA is advocating the adoption of two principles of radiation protection: appropriate justification of the radiation procedure and optimization of the radiation dose used during each procedure.
The agency intends to hold a public meeting March 30 and 31.
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