[LINK] Hold that CAT

[stephen at melbpc.org.au]

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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