Have-A-Heart campaign advocates for radiation safety in children with heart disease

The Have-A-Heart campaign has recently been launched by the Image Gently Alliance, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and a coalition of pediatric medicine and cardiology organization, addressing the issue of radiation safety in children with heart disease.

This campaign would help providers appropriately use and optimize performance of CT, fluoroscopy and nuclear medicine exams in diagnosing and treating children with heart disease. The multi-society effort would also give physicians, parents and imaging providers, resources to help them with imaging procedures. 

Below are suggestions from the campaign for physicians, parents and imaging providers:

Physicians — If you suspect kids may have heart disease or need imaging to inform heart disease treatment, help families make informed decisions.

• Know when an imaging test is (and is not) necessary.

• Explain why a CT scan, fluoroscopy or nuclear medicine exam is (or is not) the right choice.
• Discuss the benefits as well as the risks of the scan.
• Child-size the imaging radiation dose (where necessary and/or possible).

Parents — Be your child’s advocate: Ask these questions if your child is prescribed a cardiac imaging exam.

• How will this exam improve my child’s care?
• What are the benefits of having this test?
• Are there any risks of having this scan?
• What will my child’s experience be before and after the exam?
• Are there alternative tests that don’t use radiation?
• Will the radiation dose in this exam be “child-sized”? 

Imaging Providers — Kids with heart disease need special care. And like all children, they are more sensitive to radiation.

So when these kids need imaging:

• When appropriate, choose heart ultrasound, MRI or another exam that does not use radiation
• Child-size CT, fluoroscopy and nuclear medicine exams
• And, during catheterization:
  • Lower the frame rate.
  • Manage dose settings.
  • Increase image receptor field of view (reduce electronic magnification).
  • Lower the image receptor to the patient.
  • Reduce size of X-ray field (collimate).

In addition to their advocacy efforts, The Image Gently Alliance and 13 additional leading U.S. medical societies also endorsed, “Radiation Safety in Children with Congenital and Acquired Heart Disease: A Scientific Position Statement on Multimodality Dose Optimization.” 

“This Image Gently Campaign is another opportunity for medical professionals to work together to equip providers with the latest information to guide medical decisions and help parents take an active, informed role in their child’s health care. This is an example of what modern medicine is about,” said Donald Frush, MD, chair of the Image Gently Alliance and Image Gently liaison to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), in a statement.