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While there's no generally accepted safe lifetime radiation dose for children, Schulman tells parents to keep a list of their child's medical scans
-- and pull it out every time a doctor considers ordering another one. That's especially helpful for children with chronic diseases who truly need more medical scans than the average youngster. Consider 4-year-old Sarhea (Sa-RAY-ah) Kaupp of Cincinnati, who has cystic fibrosis and serious intestinal complications. By her mother's count, she's had more than 100 X-rays, three CT scans and multiple fluoroscopies, like an X-ray movie. "The risk of radiation in our experience, it has to happen. It's the lesser of two evils," says her mother, Sarah Kaupp. But she lists all her daughter's latest scans at every doctor visit to avoid any unnecessary repeats. And now she only gets them at a pediatric hospital, after X-rays from a stand-alone facility had to be repeated twice because the technicians aimed wrong and took blurry shots. Until then, "I thought an X-ray was an X-ray," Kaupp said. Under the FDA's proposed guidelines, manufacturers of new medical imaging devices would have to provide specific information on how to minimize radiation exposure for children of different ages and sizes
-- or label their scanner not for pediatric use. The guidelines also encourage push-of-a-button dose adjustments and software to remind the medical technician to make them. For parents, the FDA is publishing advice that includes a list of questions to ask to make sure your child is getting the best test. The recommendations: Ask the doctor who orders a scan how it will improve the child's care and whether there are alternatives that don't use radiation. Ask the imaging facility whether it uses reduced radiation techniques for children. The FDA also is urging doctors to consider how many scans the child already has had and the possibility of alternatives before ordering another test. MRI scans and ultrasound, for example, don't emit radiation. "It's something you need to use conscientiously," Schulman said of the scans. "Any radiation you don't need is radiation you shouldn't get."
[Associated
Press;
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