Extract
Radiation from cardiology procedures equals more than 50 chest X-rays per person each year
Cardiologists have been urged to reduce patient radiation exposure in a European Society of Cardiology (ESC) position paper that outlines doses and risks of common cardiology examinations for the first time.
The full paper, entitled ‘The appropriate and justified use of medical radiation in cardiovascular imaging: a position document of the ESC Associations of Cardiovascular Imaging and Percutaneous Cardiovascular Interventions’, was published in European Heart Journal (EHJ).1
The lead author, Dr Eugenio Picano (Pisa, Italy), said: ‘Cardiologists today are the true contemporary radiologists. Cardiology accounts for 40% of patient radiology exposure and equals more than 50 chest X-rays per person per year’. He added: ‘Unfortunately, radiation risks are not widely known to all cardiologists and patients and this creates a potential for unwanted damage that will appear as cancers, decades later. We need the entire cardiology community to be proactive in minimising the radiological friendly fire in our imaging labs’.
