Facing a CT Scan? Think About Radiation
Reader Comments
CT scan safety
Doctor says 15 or 20 yrs before ct scan can cause cancer and he wants to check improvement of a present tumor in lung,but what about someone who
already has a cancerous lung tumor, can a CT scan cause present cancer cells to spread and metasticise almost immediately?
slightly misleading
Dear John of TX,
It sounds like you possible have some ethical issues with your director.
I want to address your comments about plain x-rays usually being more than enough. This statement is way too vague and somewhat misleading. You didn't specify the nature of the bump on the child's nose. Was there concern that the bump was a soft tissue tumor or was it just a boney prominence? If the concern was for a soft tissue tumor, plain x-rays would have been useless. For the benefit of those who are not familiar with radiology, those plain x-rays also would have irradiated the eyes as well, granted the amount of radiation would be much less than what a CT would use.
I agree with you that CT scanning is often overused in many situations but you cannot make blanket statements that make sound as if these scans are done for unethical reasons.
slightly misleading
Dear John of TX,
It sounds like you possible have some ethical issues with your director.
I want to address your comments about plain x-rays usually being more than enough. This statement is way too vague and somewhat misleading. You didn't specify the nature of the bump on the child's nose. Was there concern that the bump was a soft tissue tumor or was it just a boney prominence? If the concern was for a soft tissue tumor, plain x-rays would have been useless. For the benefit of those who are not familiar with radiology, those plain x-rays also would have irradiated the eyes as well, granted the amount of radiation would be much less than what a CT would use.
I agree with you that CT scanning is often overused in many situations but you cannot make blanket statements that make sound as if these scans are done for unethical reasons.
Over use
I have worked in medical imaging for about 15 years the last 10 has been as a CT tech. I am often dismayed by how many scans are performed when there are other alternatives. Just a day ago I had to scan a 2 year old's facial bones(which irradiates the eyes and brain as well) for a bump on the nose. My problem is that for the last70 years a plain old x-ray (which has a much lower dose of radiation) would have been more than enough to diagnose the patient.
My newest concern is scanning a patient over the same area twice so we can bill ($$$) twice. An example is scanning a chest, abdomen and pelvis then scanning again for the spine(also located in the same body cavity) even though with modern scanners it is only a few clicks of a mouse to pull the spine images out without a double dose of radiation. I have tried in-vain to stop this but the director won't go against something that would lower the amount of dollars we could bill.
I truly believe that in the future society will look back at this period of time after tumors and cancer has skyrocketed and shake it collective head and wonder how we could have let this since less and completely avoidable thing happen.
radiation risk
Medical decisions always involve weighing the risks and benefits of a procedure or medication. CT scans that will potentially provide life saving information should not be avoided for fear of an assumed small increased risk of cancer. You can visit www.xrayrisk.com to calculate individual risk based on studies you have had, you'll see it's very, very small for most studies.
healthy, slim woman, 65 years old
You should ask your doctor about options. Currently CT is the best way to look at your thoracic aorta. You could try transesophageal ultrasonography but that would involve going down your throat with a probe and looking. It doesn't sound like fun to me. A CT is much easier. You didn't mention if you had any underlying risk factors such as hypertension. Talk to your doctor.
CT scans of the chest
My doctor wants me to have one again this year. I had one last year and one the preceding year. There is a very slight dilation in my aorta leading from the aortic valve, caused by a congenital bicuspid aortic valve. There is no change, for the last three years. Therefore, since there has been no change, and because of the radiation exposure, I was hoping there was an alternative way to check on this. Thank you. I am a healthy, slim woman, 65 years old.
36 year old mommy,
Just like the previous post says, it hasn't yet been determined exactly how much radiation is needed to cause cancer. I realize that this statement sounds alarming. Look at it this way. How many minutes of exposure to UV rays from the sun is needed before one gets skin cancer? This hasn't been determined yet either but that doesn't stop us from going to the beach or the tanning booth. Here's another analogy, how many times does one have to cross the street before he will get hit by a car? The answer could be one time or a million times. If you need to cross the street to pick up your kid from school then you cross the street, right?
The amount of radiation that you say you've had in the time span that you report is not an unusual amount. If that's all you ever have for the rest of your life, then don't worry about it. If you have a medical problem and it is determined that an x-ray or a CT scan is needed to diagnose or help treat the problem you have to decide what is the more immediate risk to your life, the disease that you have now or the cancer that you might or might not get 20 years from now that might or might not have anything to do with the CT scan you recived in the past.
Ct & radiation concern
I am a curious, healthy, 36 year old mommy of two babies, what is the alloted radiation dosage to avoid cancer? I am within 'normal' range of radiation? Personally I have had 1 ct scan of thorax w/out die, 2 chest x-rays and 1 x-ray on both shoulders in the past year. Should I be concern of getting cancer from all these tests? I also have never had a x-ray in my past before and I plan to never have another x-ray for many, many years to come...ever.
Dose Limits
I really don't think people understand this whole dose-limit thing. 50 mSv is a radiology tech's YEARLY dose limit. Getting that over a 4-year period is very unlikely to kill you. Secondly, there is not a threshold dose, meaning they haven't even figured out how much radiation will cause cancer. It differs from person to person. Therefore, one person may get 3 exams done and have cancer; meanwhile, another patient may have 7 patient jackets buldging full of x-rays and not have cancer at all. As far as the man saying he should probably be glowing from all the radiation he has gotten--MYTH!! You don't walk out of an x-ray department radioactive unless you have had a nuclear medicine exam performed, and even then, the half-lives of those radioisotopes wear off usually by the end of the day. X-rays do NOT make you radioactive.
