HWN Suggests

Most of the World Doesn't Have Access to X-Rays

Irene Githinji, a radiologist in Nairobi, Kenya, didn’t know if the 5-year-old boy had a deadly lesion in his brain. She needed a CT scan to be sure, but her hospital didn’t have one. Kenya’s private facilities have them for $60 to $200, but Mbagathi Hospital, where Githinji treats families, sits at the edge of the Kibera slum, the largest in Africa. “I don't know what happened to the patient after that,” she says, “but I doubt that they ever did the CT scan.”

Even when Githinji’s patients can afford a private facility, the time it takes to get them there can be fatal. “We once lost a young man with head injury, because he had to be taken out for a CT scan,” Irene remembers. The…

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It is easy and accurate to refer to an X-ray as a plain film, plain radiograph conventional X-ray, routine X-ray etc, however, these terms, understate the skill and the value of that image and what the image can reveal. An X-ray examination is ordered to see inside of the body part; to see what makes it work; to see what is wrong; to see pathology.

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Resources

RAD-AID International

To improve and optimize access to medical imaging and radiology in poor and developing regions of the world for increasing radiology’s contribution to global public health initiatives and patient care.

XrayRisk.com

While the need for education in this area has clearly been established, there are no widely available resources that provide information to both patients and health care providers about the increased risk of cancer from medical imaging. X-RayRisk.com is an educational website that focuses on estimating this risk. One of the site’s main features is a web based calculator that allows users to track their imaging history and estimate their personal risk, while providing answers to frequently asked questions.