February Issue of Radiology Raises further Awareness of NSF
In the February issue of Radiology researchers raised awareness of the risk factors between gadolinium based contrast agents and the onset of Nephrogenic Systemic Fibrosis. Javier Perez-Rodriguez, of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, and colleagues describe 33 patients diagnosed with NSF from 2003 to 2008. All the patients had advanced renal failure at the time they were given gadolinium contrasting agents prior to an MRI. The time between exposure to gadolinium and the presentation of NSF was an average of 29 days. Researchers reported before the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued warnings about the association between gadolinium exposure and NSF, the overall incidence of the disease was 36.5 cases in 100,000 patients. After the FDA pressed for a “black box” warning on the contrasting products the amount of NSF cases dropped to 4 per 100,000 patients.
In conclusion the authors write, “In January 2007, our institution implemented policies regarding the use of GBCA in patients with severe renal dysfunction, with the aim being to reduce the incidence of NSF. These policies were associated with a significant reduction in the incidence of NSF. Besides the previously reported epidemiologic considerations of NSF associations, the success of such a policy in the reduction of NSF due to GBCA exposure strengthens the belief that there is a causal relationship between GBCA and NSF.”
