Medical Imaging Scans for Headaches on the Rise

Medical Imaging has proven to be beneficial to patients, as it can improve their health outcomes with better diagnoses and treatment strategies from radiologists. However, much has been said about the overuse of procedures, as they can expose patients to unnecessary doses of radiation during scans.

The American College of Radiology started its own campaign – Imaging 3.0 – to address the justification of scans for radiologists. Additionally, the advent of electronic health records can facilitate a reduction in scans, as physicians could have access to past exams and know when to avoid them and thus reduce the potential of overexposure.

Yet, according to a study from researchers at the University of Michigan Health System in Ann Arbor, the U.S. spent nearly $4 billion in total on neuroimaging procedures between 2007 and 2010. Led by Brian Callaghan, M.D., M.S., the group examined the prevalence of scans being ordered for headaches and migraines over the four-year span.

Reducing overuse
Health Imaging reported that although the majority of headaches and migraines can be caused by harmless factors such as dehydration and hunger, patients and radiologists typically get overly concerned about the discomfort. The researchers attributed most cases of head pain to high patient demands and defensive medicine on behalf of doctors.

While Digital Imaging can have a positive impact on health outcomes, the group used the National Ambulatory Medical Survey to measure the number of headache and migraine visits by patients 18 years and older and found that CT and MRI scans were being overused. The statistics showed that if these conditions were listed as the primary diagnosis for the visit, the number of scans were significantly higher than other visits.

The majority of the visits were to primary care physicians, with 51.1 million visits being attributed to headaches and 25.4 million to migraines. In those, neuroimaging was used in 12.4 percent and 9.8 percent, respectively, of all visits.

“Given that headache neuroimaging is common, costly, and likely substantially overused, interventions to curb utilization of these tests have the potential to substantially reduce health care expenditures while improving guideline concordance. Therefore, optimizing headache neuroimaging practices should be a major national priority,” wrote the authors, quoted by the news source.

While guidelines exist for overuse, the American Board of Internal Medicine launched the Choosing Wisely campaign, which aims to increase the awareness of justifying Medical Imaging scans for headaches. With these resources in hand, physicians could help reduce health care spending by limiting the number of CT and MRI scans ordered.

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Ronny Bachrach

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