Cancer Risk From CT Scans Lower Than Previously Thought

Cancer Risk From CT Scans Lower Than Previously Thought.
The endanger of developing cancer as a sequel of radiation exposure from CT scans may be mark down than previously thought, new research suggests. That finding, scheduled to be presented Wednesday at the annual junction of the Radiological Society of North America in Chicago, is based on an eight-year critique of Medicare records covering nearly 11 million patients. "What we found is that overall between two and four out of every 10000 patients who submit to a CT scan are at risk for developing secondary cancers as a result of that emanation exposure," said Aabed Meer, an MD candidate in the department of radiology at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif. "And that risk, I would say, is belittle than we expected it to be," said Meer.

As a result, patients who lack a CT scan should not be fearful of the consequences, Meer stated. "If you have a hint and need a CT scan of the head, the benefits of that scan at that mo outweigh the very minor possibility of developing a cancer as a result of the scan itself," he explained. "CT scans do awesome things in terms of diagnosis. Yes, there is some radiation risk. But that tight-fisted risk should always be put in context".

The authors set out to quantify that risk by sifting through the medical records of elderly patients covered by Medicare between 1998 and 2005. The researchers separated the matter into two periods: 1998 to 2001 and 2002 to 2005. In the earlier period, 42 percent of the patients had undergone CT scans. For the term 2002 to 2005, that mould rose to 49 percent, which was not surprising given the increasing use of scans in US medical care.

Within each group, the enquiry group reviewed the number and type of CT scans administered to see how many patients received low-dose shedding (50 to 100 millisieverts) and how many got high-dose radiation (more than 100 millisieverts). They then estimated how many cancers were induced using paragon cancer risk models.

Yet despite the upward direction in the overall use of CT scans, with an apparent doubling of both low- and high-dose radiation exposure within the two set frames, the researchers determined that there was a "significantly lower risk of developing cancer from CT than preceding estimates". Cancers associated with radiation exposure were estimated to be 0,02 percent of the first assemblage and 0,04 percent of the second.

Previous estimates ranged from 1,5 percent to 2 percent, said the authors. While the results are chaste news, the consequences of CT scans should continue to be monitored, the authors concluded.

Dr Robert Zimmerman, administrative vice chair of radiology at Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York City, said that assessing CT skim peril is a tricky endeavor. He believes patient needs should be assessed on a case-by-case basis so as to restrict exposure as much as possible.

And "It doesn't surprise me that the secondary cancer risk is low," he said. "But it's a very labyrinthine epidemiological notion to deal with. Does every amount of cancer diffusion exposure increase your risk, or is there a level of exposure that your body can always tolerate and recover from? It's very, very unfeeling to say," Zimmerman pointed out.

So "For better or worse we are now conducting an experiment on the uninterrupted population of the US as to whether or not low-dose radiation exposure is going to raise risk of developing cancer," he said. Reducing dispersal doses across the board should be the goal, regardless of the study's finding, he noted. "We always want to give rise to sure that the dose used when scanning is as low as possible, and that scanning only takes sort when necessary and beneficial to the patient," he said med rx check. Because this study was presented at a medical meeting, the findings should be viewed as opening until they are published in a peer-reviewed journal.