The Image Gently Alliance, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and a coalition of pediatric medicine and cardiology organizations have launched the “Have-A-Heart” campaign. This multi-society effort would help providers appropriately use and optimize performance of computed tomography (CT), fluoroscopy and nuclear medicine exams in diagnosing and treating heart disease in children. The effort will also equip providers and parents with resources to help them communicate effectively when imaging procedures may (or may not) be the best option to gain proper diagnosis or guide treatment.
The “Have-A-Heart” campaign provides tools and resources to:
- Help providers ensure ordering patterns comply with latest evidence-based medical guidelines;
- Help providers explain to parents/caregivers why an imaging scan is (or is not) necessary;
- Help parents ask questions to inform decision making if their child is prescribed a cardiac imaging exam;
- Help imaging professionals understand and optimize exam radiation dose.
As part of the Have-A-Heart campaign, Image Gently — which encompasses more than 100 medical organizations in the United States and worldwide — and 13* additional leading U.S. medical societies recently endorsed “Radiation Safety in Children With Congenital and Acquired Heart Disease: A Scientific Position Statement on Multimodality Dose Optimization from the Image Gently Alliance”, published in JACC: Cardiovascular Imaging.
At the launch of the campaign, a joint IAEA-Image Gently webinar was organized on Radiation exposure in children with congenital and acquired heart disease.