Radiation from CT Scans May Pose Risk

CT scans are under continued scrutiny for safety. A few weeks ago a report at the Radiological Society Meeting of North America suggested that routine CT scans add to the overall radiation burden. As many as 20,000 cases of cancer annually might be attributed to excessive radiation from unnecessary scans.
Now two studies published in the Archives of Internal Medicine provide more specific statistics. According to one study, the radiation from CT scans done in 2007 alone will result in 29,000 cancers and 15,000 deaths.
The second study analyzed information from more than 1,000 patients who received scans in 2008. The radiation exposure from the computed tomography ranged from less than a year’s worth of background radiation to 13 times that. Some experts have compared the radiation in a single CT scan to that from 400 chest X-rays. Others say it is comparable to the radiation experienced by survivors of the Nagasaki atomic bomb blast. As a result, patients are now being urged to make sure that the scan is absolutely necessary before they agree to it.
[Archives of Internal Medicine, Dec. 14/28, 2009]