Medical physics issues highlighted in the papers of record
DOI: 10.1063/PT.4.0111
Walt Bogdanich’s New York Times ‘Radiation Boom ’ series has examined ‘issues arising from the increasing use of medical radiation and the new technologies that deliver it.’ On the Saturday, 18 June Times front page—top right, above the fold—appeared Bogdanich’s and another reporter’s article ‘Medicare Claims Showing Overuse for CT Scanning—Double Images in 2008—Greater Cost and Risk Are Seen, Mainly at Small Hospitals.’
The Washington Post caught up quickly the next day, with the back-pages article ‘Many hospitals overuse double CT scans, driving up costs, data show.’ The Times piece begins by alluding to the ‘Radiation Boom’ series, which the Times has clearly intended to cause change in radiological practice:
Long after questions were first raised about the overuse of powerful CT scans, hundreds of hospitals across the country needlessly exposed patients to radiation by scanning their chests twice on the same day, according to federal records and interviews with researchers.
Performing two scans in succession is rarely necessary, radiologists say, yet some hospitals were doing that more than 80 percent of the time for their Medicare chest patients, according to Medicare outpatient claims from 2008, the most recent year available. The rate is typically less than 1 percent, or in some cases zero, at major university teaching hospitals.
Later the Times continues:
The overuse of scans has been the subject of growing concern in recent years, but a review of the federal data, focusing on a common procedure performed millions of times a year, offers a rare and detailed snapshot of the problem state by state, hospital by hospital. In 2008, about 75,000 patients received double scans, one using iodine contrast to check blood flow, and one that did not. … Double scans expose patients to extra radiation while heaping millions of dollars in extra costs on an already overburdened Medicare program. A single CT scan of the chest is equal to about 350 standard chest X-rays, so two scans are twice that amount.
Both articles offer facts and figures from official federal sources as well as comments from various experts. As of Monday, 20 June, a search of the Wall Street Journal shows no coverage of the question.