Cancer Risk From CT Scans Lower Than Previously Thought

Cancer Risk From CT Scans Lower Than Previously Thought.
The hazard of developing cancer as a sequel of radiation exposure from CT scans may be move than previously thought, new research suggests. That finding, scheduled to be presented Wednesday at the annual tryst of the Radiological Society of North America in Chicago, is based on an eight-year study of Medicare records covering nearly 11 million patients. "What we found is that overall between two and four out of every 10000 patients who be subjected to a CT scan are at risk for developing secondary cancers as a result of that emission 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 decrease than we expected it to be".

As a result, patients who paucity a CT scan should not be fearful of the consequences, Meer stated. "If you have a caress and need a CT scan of the head, the benefits of that scan at that moment outweigh the very stripling possibility of developing a cancer as a result of the scan itself. CT scans do amazing things in terms of diagnosis. Yes, there is some dispersal risk. But that small risk should always be put in context".

The authors set out to quantify that jeopardize 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 epoch 2002 to 2005, that force rose to 49 percent, which was not surprising given the increasing use of scans in US medical care.

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

Yet despite the upward trend in the overall use of CT scans, with an clear doubling of both low- and high-dose radiation exposure within the two time frames, the researchers strong-minded that there was a "significantly lower risk of developing cancer from CT than previous estimates". Cancers associated with shedding exposure were estimated to be 0,02 percent of the first group and 0,04 percent of the second.

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

Dr Robert Zimmerman, directorate vice chair of radiology at Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York City, said that assessing CT pore over risk is a tricky endeavor. He believes invalid needs should be assessed on a case-by-case basis so as to limit exposure as much as possible.

And "It doesn't set me that the secondary cancer risk is low. But it's a very complicated epidemiological caprice to deal with. Does every amount of cancer radiation exposure increase your risk, or is there a wreck of exposure that your body can always tolerate and recover from? It's very, very hard to say," Zimmerman pungent out.

So "For better or worse we are now conducting an experiment on the entire population of the US as to whether or not low-dose emanation exposure is going to raise risk of developing cancer". Reducing radiation doses across the accommodate should be the goal, regardless of the study's finding. "We always want to make sure that the dose utilized when scanning is as low as possible, and that scanning only takes place when necessary and beneficial to the patient" sleeping. Because this consider was presented at a medical meeting, the findings should be viewed as preliminary until they are published in a peer-reviewed journal.