Background. Although using computed tomography (CT) can be greatly beneficial, the associated relatively high radiation doses have led to growing concerns in relation to potential associations with risk of future cancer. Very little has been published regarding the trends of CT use in young people. Therefore, our objective was to assess temporal and other patterns in CT usage among patients aged under 22 years in Great Britain from 1993 to 2002. Methods. Electronic data were obtained from the Radiology Information Systems of 81 hospital trusts within Great Britain. All included patients were aged under 22 years and examined using CT between 1993 and 2002, with accessible radiology records. Results. The number of CT examinations doubled over the study period. While increases in numbers of recorded examinations were seen across all age groups, the greatest increases were in the older patients, most notably those aged 15–19 years of age. Sixty percent of CT examinations were of the head, with the percentages varying with calendar year and patient age. Conclusions. In contrast to previous data from the North of England, the doubling of CT use was not accompanied by an increase in numbers of multiple examinations to the same individual. 1. Introduction Since entering clinical service use in the 1970s as an alternative to standard X rays and ultrasound, examinations using computed tomography (CT) have rapidly become an indispensable, sometimes life-saving diagnostic tool, with ever increasing clinical applications. Whilst the immediate benefit to the individual patient of having a CT examination can be substantial, the relatively high radiation doses associated with CT have given rise to growing concerns from a public health perspective, in particular, due to a possible increase in future cancer risk, with estimates of increased risks of number of different cancers shown when using extrapolations from likely doses to the risk estimates produced on studies of the atomic bomb survivors [1–9]. Children can receive higher radiation doses than necessary if examined using adult CT settings [10]. Surveys have estimated that children under 15 years of age make up between 3% and 11% of patients who undergo CT examinations in Western Europe and North America [11–13]. Younger patients are more susceptible to the effects of radiation, in part due to their longer postirradiation life expectancy and because following the same radiation exposure they experience greater radiation-induced tissue damage than adults due to their increased vulnerability of rapidly dividing cells
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