OBJECTIVE To evaluate emergency department patients' knowledge of radiation exposure and subsequent risks from computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans. METHODS This is a cross-sectional survey study of adult, English-speaking patients from June to August 2011 at 2 emergency departments--1 academic and 1 community-based--in the upper Midwest. The survey consisted of...

Effects of ionizing radiation on the level of genomic DNA methylation in liver, brain and spleen of mouse as well as in two kinds of cultured cells were examined by high-performance liquid chromatography. Ten Gy of whole body X-radiation reduced the 5-methyldeoxycytidine contents by about 40% within 8 hours after irradiation in liver. Similar effects were observed at 4 or 7 Gy of X-ray irradiat...

Catheter ablation of cardiac arrhythmias in pediatric population is associated with the risk of ionizing radiation on the child. Due to a greater radiation sensitivity in children and a longer life expectancy newer techniques try to reduce the radiation exposure. A new technique for zero-fluoroscopy catheter ablation is described in a 9-year-old boy who had a left-sided concealed accessory path...

C hildren with congenital and acquired heart disease typically undergo imaging procedures that may expose them to large amounts of ionizing radiation. Radiation exposure in childhood is of particular concern because children have immature developing organ and tissue structures. These factors , as well as the potentially longer lifespan of these children , may significantly increase lifetime can...

Ionizing radiation is an important component of multimodal therapy for alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma (ARMS). We sought to evaluate the ability of IFN-beta to enhance the activity of ionizing radiation. Rh-30 and Rh-41 ARMS cells were treated with IFN-beta and ionizing radiation to assess synergistic effects in vitro and as orthotopic xenografts in CB17 severe combined immunodeficient mice. In addit...

The role of DNA repair by nonhomologous end joining (NHEJ), homologous recombination, spore photoproduct lyase, and DNA polymerase I and genome protection via alpha/beta-type small, acid-soluble spore proteins (SASP) in Bacillus subtilis spore resistance to accelerated heavy ions (high-energy charged [HZE] particles) and X rays has been studied. Spores deficient in NHEJ and alpha/beta-type SASP...

To clarify the mechanisms underlying radiation-induced hematopoietic stem cell death, we investigated the effects of excessive ionizing radiation on the clonogenic potential of CD34(+) cells obtained from human umbilical cord blood under cytokine-free conditions. The CD34(+) cells were X-ray-irradiated (up to 2 Gy) and were cultured for 0-48 h under cytokine-free conditions. At various time-poi...

Background: Cell ability to recover from radiation damage is of great relevance in cancer treatment. It is often believed that the inhibition of cell ability to the liquid holding recovery (LHR) may be an indicator of the overall suppression of cell ability to recover from potentially lethal radiation damage. However, the literature contains no experimental evidence whether the LHR inhibition m...