53% of x-rays are of little use in diagnosis: IAEA

53% of x-rays are of little use in diagnosis: IAEA
31 May 2008, 0150 hrs IST,Kounteya Sinha ,TNN

NEW DELHI: Your x-ray may not be giving your doctor a clear picture of what's wrong with your health. In a largescale study done by the International Atomic Energy Agency in 12 countries in Europe, Asia and Africa, nearly 53% of the x-ray tests done in 45 hospitals were found to be of poor image quality, compromising the accuracy of the diagnosis and exposing patients to unnecessary radiation.

The study, published in the June edition of the American Journal of Roentgenology, was spearheaded by Dr Madan Rehani of IAEA's division of radiation. Dr Rehani was professor of medical physics at AIIMS till 2001.

Though India was not part of the survey — Thailand being the only Asian country studied — Dr Rehani and experts in India said the standard of x-ray examinations in the country would be just as bad. Dr Rehani told TOI from Vienna that poor image quality of x-rays constituted a major source of unnecessary radiation for patients in developing countries.

"Even as use of x-rays in medical care is growing in developing countries, information about both the quality of x-ray images and patient doses is grossly lacking at many hospitals. Through our study, we found three reasons behind poor x-ray imaging — malfunctioning of x-ray equipment, inappropriate technique and lack of expertise of the operator," Dr Rehani said.

According to IAEA, every day across the world, radiation is used in more than 10 million diagnostic procedures, 1,00,000 nuclear medicine procedures and for the radiation treatment of over 10,000 patients.

Dr Rehani said, "Every day, about 10 million radiological examinations are performed. More than 90% of these are radiographic examinations like chest and abdomen x-ray. In radiographic examinations, our study has shown that poor quality images are very large (4% to 53%). Even if one takes a conservative figure of 10%, it means about a million poor quality images are generated every day."

'Repeated x-rays can lead to cancer'

Dr Madan Rehani of IAEA's division of radiation said that the cost of getting an x-ray should drive providers to ensure that patients aren't exposed to unnecessary radiation.

"The health ministry should be aware of the magnitude of this problem and ensure quality control of x-rays. Our study also showed that improvement in image quality to the tune of 13% in Asia, 16% in Africa and 22% in Europe was achieved by putting in place quality control programmes," Dr Rehani said.