Treating children with kid gloves

Medical specialties and turf issues aside, doctors are particularly mindful of using the least harmful, most sensitive methods when it comes to pediatric patients. Two recent reports -- from the American Society of Anesthesiologists and the American Society for Therapeutic Radiation and Oncology (ASTRO) meetings -- focused on the pre- and post-treatment results in children who undergo imaging, or radiation therapy for cancer.

Dear AuntMinnie Member,

Medical specialties and turf issues aside, doctors are particularly mindful of using the least harmful, most sensitive methods when it comes to pediatric patients. Two recent reports -- from the American Society of Anesthesiologists and the American Society for Therapeutic Radiation and Oncology (ASTRO) meetings -- focused on the pre- and post-treatment results in children who undergo imaging, or radiation therapy for cancer.

In the first paper, Boston anesthesiologists praised oral pentobarbital over chloral hydrate for sedated infant imaging. The good news was that oral pentobarbital had a lower failure rate. On the downside, using this sedative induced an unpleasant, but temporary, side effect called "rage" reaction. To read more on this study, click here, or visit the CT Digital Community.

At the ASTRO meeting, a National Cancer Institute-sponsored study offered information on a potential link between childhood cancer treatment with radiation and subsequent heart disease. You can read the details here.

And in a related article in our Women’s Imaging Digital Community, you’ll find out why the U.K. Department of Health is encouraging women who were treated with radiotherapy for Hodgkin’s disease as children to have early breast cancer screening.

Our editor-in-chief, Brian Casey, is on assignment.