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Posts Tagged ‘Healthcare’

What Accutane Helps Skin Renew Itself More Quickly

February 8th, 2010 Guideasy No comments

What is Accutane?
Accutane is a form of vitamin A. It reduces the amount of oil released by oil glands in your skin, and helps your skin renew itself more quickly.

Accutane is used to treat severe nodular acne. It is usually given after other acne medicines or antibiotics have been tried without successful treatment of symptoms.

Accutane may also be used for other purposes not listed in this medication guide.

What is the most important information I should know about Accutane?
Accutane can cause severe, life-threatening birth defects if the mother takes the medication during pregnancy. Even one dose of Accutane can cause major birth defects of the baby’s ears, eyes, face, skull, heart, and brain. Never use Accutane if you are pregnant. Read more…

Dose Reduction Improvements in Cardiac CT Scanning

December 23rd, 2009 Guideasy No comments

Answering a growing demand for radiation dose reduction in cardiac CT scanning, GE Healthcare announced the release of napShot Pulse?at a national meeting earlier this month. This advancement in technology will achieve up to an 83% reduction in the patient’s radiation exposure as well as improve image quality. Los Angeles CT Scan expert explains.

The average American’s total radiation exposure has nearly doubled since 1980, largely because of CT scans. Medical radiation now accounts for more than half of the population’s total exposure; it used to be just one-sixth, and the top source was the normal background rate in the environment, from things like radon in soil and cosmic energy from the sun. But CT use continues to soar. About 62 million scans were done in the U.S. last year, up from 3 million in 1980.

Los Angeles CT scans became popular because they offer a quick, relatively cheap and painless way to get 3D pictures so detailed they give an almost surgical view into the body. But they put out a lot of radiation. In a few decades, as many as 2 percent of all cancers in the United States might be due to radiation from CT scans given now, according to the authors of a recent report in the New England Journal of Medicine. A CT scan of the chest involves 10 to 15 millisieverts (a measure of dose) versus 0.01 to 0.15 for a regular chest X-ray, 3 for a mammogram and a mere 0.005 for a dental X-ray. The dose depends on the type of machine and the person ?obese people require more radiation than slim ones ?and the risk accumulates over a lifetime. Read more…