title: Radiation Exposure from Diagnostic Imaging in a Cohort of Pediatric Transplant Recipients.
abstract: Recipients of solid organ transplants (SOT) have extensive diagnostic imaging (DI). The purpose of this study was to quantify this exposure. Children from northern Alberta with SOTs at Stollery Children's Hospital, Edmonton, Alberta January 1, 2006, to July 31, 2012, were included. Effective doses of radiation were estimated using published norms for DI performed post-transplant up to October 16, 2014. The 54 eligible children had 6215 DI studies (5628 plain films, 293 computerized tomography (CT) scans, 149 positron emission topography (PET) -CT scans, 47 nuclear medicine scans and 98 cardiac catheterizations). Children less than 5 years of age underwent more DI studies than did older children (median (IQR) 140 (66-210) vs 49 (19-105), p = 0.010). Children with post-transplant lymphoproliferative disorder (N = 8) had more CT scans (median (IQR) 13 (5.5-36) vs 1 (0-5), p<0.001) and PET-CT scans (median (IQR) 3.5 (1.5-8) vs 0 (0-0), p<0.001) than did other children. The estimated cumulative effective dose attributed to DI studies post-transplant was median (range) 78 (4.1-400) millisievert (mSv), and 19 of 54 children (35%; 95% confidence interval 24-49%) had a dose >100 mSv. In conclusion, a significant proportion of pediatric transplant recipients have sufficient radiation exposure post-transplant for DI to be at potential risk for radiation-induced malignancies.
authors.affiliation: University of Alberta and Stollery Children's Hospital, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
authors.forename: Alexandra
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Seal
authors.affiliation: University of Alberta and Stollery Children's Hospital, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hawkes
authors.affiliation: University of Alberta and Stollery Children's Hospital, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
authors.forename: Ravi
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Bhargava
authors.affiliation: University of Alberta and Stollery Children's Hospital, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
authors.forename: Michelle
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Noga
authors.affiliation: University of Alberta and Stollery Children's Hospital, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
authors.forename: Jutta
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Preiksaitis
authors.affiliation: University of Alberta and Stollery Children's Hospital, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
authors.forename: Curtis
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Mabilangan
authors.affiliation: University of Alberta and Stollery Children's Hospital, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
authors.forename: Joan
authors.identifier: 0000-0001-9831-5681
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Robinson
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000367:Age Factors; D064591:Allografts; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D015331:Cohort Studies; D005260:Female; D018380:Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008232:Lymphoproliferative Disorders / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000628:therapy; D008297:Male; D009381:Neoplasms, Radiation-Induced / Q000453:epidemiology*; D049268:Positron-Emission Tomography / Q000009:adverse effects*; D012307:Risk Factors; D013997:Time Factors; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed / Q000009:adverse effects*