Medical scans trigger alarms

Patients who have thallium scans should be given cards to present to aviation security staff, the researchers say. Picture / Kenny Rodger

LONDON - Patients who have had medical scans should be warned that they could set off false security alarms at airports for as long as a month afterwards, a British report says.

The authors of the Lancet study called for information cards to be issued to people who had scans involving radioisotopes to decrease disruption as a result of the accidental alerts.

More than 18 million such diagnostic and therapeutic procedures are carried out each year. Radioisotopes are used in scans involving the thyroid gland, bone and blood flow to the heart.

The team at the Royal Brompton Hospital in London highlighted the case of a 55-year-old commercial pilot who had had a heart scan using a radioisotope of the element thallium.

Two days later he travelled to Moscow as a crew member but triggered radiation detector alarms going through Customs and faced extensive interrogation. He was eventually released, but then four days later the same thing happened as he returned through the same airport.

In the end airport security officials gave him a card to carry, explaining his risk of setting off alarms.

Professor Richard Underwood said: "Stricter measures and more sensitive radiation detection systems are being deployed at airports worldwide.

"It is important to warn patients having had a thallium scan that they may trigger radiation detectors for up to 30 days.

"It should be standard practice to issue patients with an information card after diagnostic or therapeutic procedures involving radioisotopes.

"Patient information cards could lessen the impact of such false alarms and avoid unnecessary interrogations by airport security personnel."

- NZPA