A few thoughts from a tumor surgeon

Radiation Passport helps physicians and patients determine cancer risk and cumulative radiation exposure in diagnostic imaging

June 10, 2010 at 5:55 pm Leave a comment

This review is cross posted from iMedicalApps.com

Radiation Passport aims to fulfill an important need: to quantify the cancer risk for the various diagnostic imaging studies and to add up the cumulative exposure and cancer risk for one patient. The app makers explicitly invite lay persons to track their own cumulative dose (thus the monicker “passport”) but the design and vocabulary appear to be targeted more toward physicians.

While the diagnostic benefits of modern imaging techniques are easily appreciated, the risk of exposure to ionizing radiation is less well understood. This question has become more acute as recently published studies attempting to quantify cancer risk from diagnostic radiation were widely picked up by media outlets. I can attest that, in recent months, many of my patients have brought up this coverage when I ordered scans. At the same time, I have also decreased orders for CT scans and even x-rays in my pediatric patients.

Radiation Passport (iTunes link) was designed and built by a team of two brothers, one of whom is a radiologist – and is priced at $3.99. The application includes a well written “background” section which deals early-on with the vexing dilemma of calculating cancer risk – that much of of the data on cancer risk is extrapolated from atomic bomb data – by simply stating it is the best information available. Much of the background section of the app is drawn from an accompanying article in the Journal of American College of Radiology, in which the brothers describe the application’s methodology.

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Entry filed under: app review. Tags: cancer risk, diagnostic radiology, imaging, iPhone.