Radiologists Don't Face Higher Risk of Radiation-Related Death: Study

Tuesday, July 19, 2016 (HealthDay News) - A new study reports that radiologists who graduated from the medical department after 1940 are at a lower risk of death due to long-term exposure to low levels of radiation

Researchers at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) attributed this to improved radiation protection, safety equipment and surveillance

This team led by NCI Radiology Epidemiology Director Amy Berrington de Gonzalez analyzed the records of the American Medical Association (AMA) physician Masterfile. The database was created in 1906 and contains information on more than 4 million American physicians, residents, medical students.

Researchers compared the cancer and mortality rates of approximately 44,000 radiologists and approximately 65,000 psychiatrists who graduated from medical school between 1916 and 2006. Because they are unlikely to be exposed to radiation in the workplace, psychiatrists are chosen

"During the past few decades the surgery has undergone significant changes.In order to make it more difficult to find a group of doctors who have not suffered radiation, more doctors need fluoroscopy to guide surgery "Dr. Linet said at a journal press conference. Linet is a senior researcher at NCI Radiology Epidemiology Department.

This study found that a radiologist who graduated from the medical department before 1940 was facing an increased mortality rate associated with radiation exposure such as acute myeloid leukemia, melanoma, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

However, researchers point out that male radiologists who graduated since 1940 are better than psychiatrists. Newer radiologists have no evidence of an increase in radiation related deaths

"We feel there is evidence that dosage reductions in the US and other countries have been successful and that there seems to be a reduction in the risks of recent graduates," Linet said.

There are definitely several risks. The magnitude of radiation risk is related to the dose, the higher the radiation dose, the higher the risk. The undoubted health benefits of X-ray diagnosis and nuclear medicine diagnosis may involve a general small risk (probability) of adverse effects. This fact must be taken into account when using an ionizing radiation source in diagnosis. Since radiation therapy requires a large amount of radiation, the risk of radiation-related adverse reactions is more measurable

With a few exceptions, the general trend is that the dose-specific risk of radiation-related cancer is inversely proportional to the age of radiation exposure. Radiation-related risk and baseline cancer risk tend to increase with age after exposure, but the age-related increase in radiation-related risk may not be as steep as the baseline cancer risk. Even with radiation exposure before the first full-term pregnancy, the first full-term pregnancy at a relatively young age (eg before 25 years of age) has a protective effect against radiation related breast cancer risk. The interaction between smoking and radiation exposure is not known as a risk factor for lung cancer. For example, there is some evidence suggesting that the minimum associated excess risk (smoking-related various risks) among smokers' miners is higher than nonsmokers. Other evidence suggests that radiation related excess risk of A-bomb survivors exposed to gamma rays does not change with smoking level.

In epidemiological studies targeting medical radiology workers, people employed before 1950 have leukemia and the risk of skin and female breast cancer is too high, but there is little consistent evidence of cancer risk was. Occupational radiation dose-related dose response, recent risk assessment, and lifelong cancer risk data are limited to radiologists and radiologists, and there is a shortage of doctors and technicians who implement or support fluoroscopic guidance procedures I will. Based on the minority of research data from 80 major cardiologists and the number of studies by other experts, it is estimated that the effective dose of each intervention physician differs by more than one order of magnitude.