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PEDIATRICS Vol. 114 No. 1 July 2004, pp. 205-209

SPECIAL ARTICLE

Reduction of Cancer Risk Associated With Pediatric Computed Tomography by the Development of New Technologies

Mark G. Benz, ScD* and Matthew W. Benz, MD, SM, FAAP{ddagger}

* Engineering Horizons International, Lincoln, Vermont
{ddagger} Southboro Medical Group, Southboro, Massachusetts

Abbreviations: CT, computed tomography • MRI, magnetic resonance imaging

The first 300 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Although helical and multidetector (multislice) computed tomography (CT) approaches are invaluable and rapidly growing imaging modalities for pediatric patients, the radiation exposure associated with these technologies has come under increasing scrutiny.1 Ionizing radiation has many documented harmful effects, the most serious being the induction of fatal cancers.2 Children are at 10-fold greater risk, compared with middle-aged adults, because dividing cells are most susceptible to radiation-induced neoplastic transformation and because there is more time for these genotoxic effects to be manifested during the child's remaining lifetime.3

The radiation doses of typical pediatric, diagnostic, CT studies overlap the doses received by some World War II Japanese atomic bomb survivors, among whom excess cancer mortality rates have been observed.4,5 On the basis of predictions from these survivor data, the radiation doses from typical pediatric CT studies may cause the eventual cancer-related death of 1 of 1000 children examined.3 This rate is considered by many to be unacceptable, which has spurred efforts to obtain high-quality, diagnostic, clinical imaging with reduced radiation exposure.6–9

Immediate measures to address this problem have focused on minimizing CT radiation exposure among children with recommendations for more judicious use of CT examinations6,7 and with adjustment of the exposure parameters of existing CT equipment, to deliver "as low as reasonably achievable" radiation doses while still yielding high-quality images.8–12 Although progress has been made on each of these fronts, wide variability in scanning techniques still exists, exposing many children to radiation doses that are higher than necessary.13 In addition, newer multidetector (multislice) CT scanners are now being used and are inherently more complex, presenting additional challenges with respect to dose reduction.14 These difficulties have stimulated the search for long-term, new-technology-based approaches to CT radiation dose reduction for children. In this search, 2 questions are asked, as follows. Can new "kid-size" technologies be . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Address correspondence to Mark G. Benz, ScD, Engineering Horizons International, 1909 York Hill Rd, Lincoln, VT 05443. E-mail: benz@engineeringhorizons.com




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