US Hospitals begin rationing CT scans amid contrast dye shortage

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Hospitals grapple with shortage of crucial component for medical imaging tests

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A shortage of a key component for some crucial imaging tests such as CT scans is leading to rationing within hospitals, patient backlogs and doctors across the United States making do with less-than-ideal alternatives ?across the United States.

The component is a liquid called IV contrast, which contains iodine. It can be injected into a patient's bloodstream to highlight different structures on scans. It can reveal, for example, the location of a clot when someone is having a stroke.

The shortage stems from ?the temporary closure of GE Healthcare's manufacturing facility in Shanghai ?in the midst of that city's two-month "zero-Covid" lockdown. ??The lockdown began in early April and was mostly lifted by early June.

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"For these patients, getting CT scans with contrast can be extremely important, not only in the diagnosis of a cancer upfront but then also assessing treatment responses, assessing if the cancer has come back," said Jain, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Illinois Cancer Center in Chicago.

She said she's worried about patients delaying care -- on top of all the other delays during the Covid-19 pandemic.
"I saw patients who probably had curable cancers at the beginning of the pandemic," she said. "By the time they came in, their symptoms had progressed to a point where they had metastatic disease."

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