LOADING

Type to search

2 Comments

  1. Paul A Witt December 27, 2012

    The points made in the debate are well-founded and make good sense, but the article deals specifically with pathology management. The article ignores the trend to use techniques with relatively high radiation exposure both in medicine and dentistry, especially in young cohorts of patients, sometimes when no pathology is present (eg full view CBCT for adolescents in some orthodontic practices and teaching institutions), and when less or no radiation exposure is needed . Often, tissues with high sensitivity to radiation are being exposed in our young patients. Since there is no central registry for tracking the number and types of radiation exposures patients have had, I suggest that any study on the effects of radiation in regard to cancer incidence will have a significant margin of error falsely downplaying the impact of radiation on the incidence of cancers. Is it not time that we in the health professions monitor the radiation exposure patients receive with a central registry?

    Reply
    1. Interesting concept; a national registry. Google Health and Microsoft Vault both tried to capitalize on what was referred to as Health 2.0, where a persons medical data went to a central repository that was controlled by the person. In theory, you could give access to your health care provider and they could see who much radiation you’d received. Both platforms died (Google just went offline). My interpretation of the RCDSO electronic records guidelines don’t allow for the concept (the security of the records/privacy is the reponsability of the provider, if you upload it – even with patient permission and it gets hacked, you are at fault).

      After the article in April this year about the risk of meningioma, it’s a real issue that we should be proactively pursueing. But how could a central registry ever be administered?

      Reply

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *