McGill researchers find cancer risk related to heart scans

Researchers at McGill University Health Center (MUHC) and the Jewish General Hospital found that patients exposed to low-dose ionizing radiation from cardiac imaging and therapeutic procedures after acute myocardial infarction may be at increased risk of cancer.

“Using an administrative database, we selected a cohort of patients who had an acute myocardial infarction between April 1996 and March 2006 and no history of cancer. We documented all cardiac imaging and therapeutic procedures involving low-dose ionizing radiation,” writes Dr. Louise Pilote, co-author of the study and researcher in epidemiology at the Research Institute of the MUHC and director of the Division of Internal Medicine at the MUHC. The findings were recently published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

Dr. Mark Eisenberg, of the division of cardiology and clinical epidemiology at the Jewish General Hospital in Montreal, co-wrote the study with his wife, Dr. Pilote. “Multiple doctors can be ordering multiple different imaging tests and procedures in patients in different hospitals, and no one is keeping track,” Eisenberg told myhealthnewsdaily. “This was not a big problem in the past, but with the explosion in imaging procedures, we need to start thinking about instituting a system to keep track of what imaging procedures patients have previously undergone.”
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Researchers at McGill University Health Center (MUHC) and the Jewish General Hospital found that patients exposed to low-dose ionizing radiation from cardiac imaging and therapeutic procedures after acute myocardial infarction may be at increased risk of cancer.

“Using an administrative database, we selected a cohort of patients who had an acute myocardial infarction between April 1996 and March 2006 and no history of cancer. We documented all cardiac imaging and therapeutic procedures involving low-dose ionizing radiation,” writes Dr. Louise Pilote, co-author of the study and researcher in epidemiology at the Research Institute of the MUHC and director of the Division of Internal Medicine at the MUHC. The findings were recently published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

Dr. Mark Eisenberg, of the division of cardiology and clinical epidemiology at the Jewish General Hospital in Montreal, co-wrote the study with his wife, Dr. Pilote. “Multiple doctors can be ordering multiple different imaging tests and procedures in patients in different hospitals, and no one is keeping track,” Eisenberg told myhealthnewsdaily. “This was not a big problem in the past, but with the explosion in imaging procedures, we need to start thinking about instituting a system to keep track of what imaging procedures patients have previously undergone.”
RELATED COVERAGE:
Fox News
CTV
CBC
Bloomberg Business Week
National Post
The Times of India
Montreal Gazette
msnbc
The Globe and Mail
Canoë
Radio-Canada