Perception of Radiation Exposure and Risk Among Patients, Medical Students, and Referring Physicians at a Tertiary Care Community Hospital

AbstractBackgroundIt is important for physicians to be aware of the radiation doses as well as the risks associated with diagnostic imaging procedures that they are ordering.MethodsA survey was administered to patients, medical students, and referring physicians from a number of specialties to determine background knowledge regarding radiation exposure and risk associated with commonly ordered medical imaging tests.ResultsA total of 127 patients, 32 referring physicians, and 30 medical students completed the survey. The majority of patients (92%) were not informed of the radiation risks associated with tests that they were scheduled to receive and had false perceptions about the use of radiation and its associated risks. Physicians and medical students had misconceptions about the use of ionizing radiation in a number of radiologic examinations; for example, 25% and 43% of physicians and medical students, respectively, were unaware that interventional procedures used ionizing radiation, and 28% of physicians were unaware that mammography used ionizing radiation. Computed tomographies and barium studies were thought to be associated with the least ionizing radiation among physicians.ConclusionThere is a need for educating the public, medical students, and referring physicians about radiation exposure and associated risk so that (1) patients receiving multiple medical imaging tests are aware of the radiation that they are receiving and (2) physicians and future physicians will make informed decisions when ordering such tests to limit the amount of radiation that patients receive and to promote informed consent among patients

Publication rates of abstracts presented at major interventional radiology conferences

PURPOSE:We aimed to determine the publication rate and factors predictive of publication of oral presentations at the annual meetings of the Cardiovascular and Interventional Radiology Society of Europe (CIRSE) and the Society of Interventional Radiology (SIR).METHODS:Keywords and authors from oral presentation abstracts at the 2012 CIRSE and SIR annual meetings were used to search PubMed and GoogleScholar for subsequent publication. Logistic regression was performed to identify whether number of authors, country of origin, subject category, methodology, study type, and/or study results were predictive of publication.RESULTS:A total of 421 abstracts (CIRSE-126, SIR-295) met the inclusion criteria. The overall publication rate across both conferences was 44.9%. Time from conference presentation to publication was 15±8.9 months for CIRSE and 16.3±8.8 months for SIR (P > 0.05), with a combined time interval of 15.9±8.8 months for both. The median impact factor of published abstracts was 2.075 (interquartile range, 2.075–2.775) for CIRSE and 2.093 (2.075–2.856) for SIR (P > 0.05). The most common country of origin for published abstracts was Germany (27.1%) at CIRSE and the United States (69%) at SIR. Logistic regression did not identify factors that were predictive of future publication.CONCLUSION:Publication rates were similar for CIRSE and SIR. Factors such as country of origin, topic of study and study results were not predictive of future publication. Authors should not be discouraged from submitting their work to journals based on these factors