Improving the Evidence Base for Radiation Protection in Paediatric Diagnostic Radiology: Key Findings from the EPI-CT Study

Recording →

Moderator: Chadia Rizk (IAEA) 

Presenters: Richard Harbron (United Kingdom), Ausrele Kesminiene (Lithuania) 

About the webinar

Computed tomography (CT) plays a vital role in modern healthcare. The relatively high doses (compared to general radiography) raise concerns about potential cancer risks, however the magnitude of these risks is highly uncertain.

The ‘Epidemiological study to quantify risks for paediatric CT and to optimise doses’ (EPI-CT) was launched to:

• Establish a large multinational cohort of paediatric and adolescent patients who received CT scans suitable for long-term follow-up;
• Develop individual estimates of organ-specific doses from CT scans using improved methods for dose estimation;
• Investigate the relationship between radiation dose from CT in paediatric and adolescent patients and potential long-term health outcomes.

This webinar will provide an overview of key findings from the EPI-CT study, emphasizing the need for targeted radiation protection measures when imaging paediatric patients. Experts will discuss the necessity of justification (ensuring that CT scans are medically warranted) and optimization (minimizing exposure while maintaining diagnostic quality).

Learning objectives

• To understand the motivation, methodology, key findings and implications of the EPI-CT study.
• To highlight the importance of justification in medical exposure to protect children.
• To learn about the evidence base for optimization of exposures in paediatric CT imaging.

About the presenters

Dr Richard Harbron is a physicist currently working at the International Agency for Research on Cancer on research investigating the radiation doses and associated cancer risks from nuclear weapons testing in Kazakhstan. Previously, he worked in the radiation protection group at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) and at Newcastle University where he worked on studies of health risks from medical exposures in children, including EPI-CT.

Dr Ausrele Kesminiene is a radiation epidemiologist, currently holding a position of Senior Visiting Scientist at the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC/WHO) in Lyon, France. She received an MD from the Vilnius University in Lithuania and was later trained in epidemiology and radiation biology at the Radiation Effects Research Foundation and Hiroshima University in Hiroshima, Japan. Dr Kesminiene joined the IARC in 1997 and became the Deputy Head of the Section of Environment and Radiation until her retirement in 2017. Her research interests comprise cancer risks in populations exposed environmentally, occupationally and in medical settings, including the cohort study to quantify cancer risks from paediatric CT in nine European countries (EPI-CT).