[LINK] Hold that CAT
stephen at melbpc.org.au
stephen at melbpc.org.au
Fri Jan 31 23:39:57 AEDT 2014
Linkers .. off topic, but seemingly a safety matter ..
Maybe consider holding off on that CT scan (equal to 5,000 chest X-rays?)
"We Are Giving Ourselves Cancer"
By RITA F. REDBERG and REBECCA SMITH-BINDMANJAN. 30, 2014 (SNIP)
<www.nytimes.com/2014/01/31/opinion/we-are-giving-ourselves-cancer.html>
DESPITE great strides in prevention and treatment, cancer rates remain
stubbornly high, and may soon surpass heart disease as the leading cause of
death in the United States.
Increasingly, we and many other experts believe that an important culprit
may be our own medical practices: We are silently irradiating ourselves to
death.
The use of medical imaging with high-dose radiation CT scans in
particular has soared in the last 20 years.
Our resulting exposure to medical radiation has increased more than sixfold
between the 1980s and 2006, according to the National Council on Radiation
Protection & Measurements.
The radiation doses of CT scans (a series of X-ray images from multiple
angles) are 100 to 1,000 times higher than conventional X-rays.
Of course, early diagnosis thanks to medical imaging can be lifesaving. But
there is distressingly little evidence of better health outcomes associated
with the current high rate of scans. There is, however, evidence of its
harms.
The relationship between radiation and the development of cancer is well
understood: A single CT scan exposes a patient to the amount of radiation
that epidemiologic evidence shows can be cancer-causing.
The risks have been demonstrated directly in two large clinical studies in
Britain and Australia. In the British study, children exposed to multiple
CT scans were found to be three times more likely to develop leukemia and
brain cancer..
CTs, once rare, are now routine. One in 10 Americans undergo a CT scan
every year, and many of them get more than one.
We know that these tests are overused. But even when they are appropriately
used, they are not always done in the safest ways possible.
The rule is that doses for medical imaging should be as low as reasonably
achievable. But there are no specific guidelines for what these doses are,
and thus there is considerable variation within and between institutions.
The dose at one hospital can be as much as 50 times stronger than at
another.
A recent study at one New York hospital found that nearly a third of its
patients undergoing multiple cardiac scans were getting a cumulative
effective dose of more than 100 millisieverts of radiation equivalent to
5,000 chest X-rays ..
(Rita F. Redberg is a cardiologist at the University of
California)
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