Ground Report

Trauma patients treated in US emergency rooms on average are exposed to radiation equivalent to 1,005 chest X-rays each, enough to raise their risk of cancer, researchers reported on Monday. Doctors should think about the total dose of radiation given patients, especially younger ones, Dr James Winslow of Wake Forest University in North Carolina and colleagues said. Writing in the Annals of Emergency Medicine, they said they analyzed the records of 86 patients who came to a level one trauma center over a three-month period in 2006. More than half had been in car accidents. These patients got many X-rays and computed tomography of CT scans, which provide a better image but which can deliver high amounts of radiation.