Cancer Risk From CT Scans Lower Than Previously Thought

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

As a result, patients who for a CT scan should not be fearful of the consequences, Meer stated. "If you have a iota and need a CT scan of the head, the benefits of that scan at that moment outweigh the very child 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 emanation 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 statistics 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 patch 2002 to 2005, that illustration rose to 49 percent, which was not surprising given the increasing use of scans in US medical care.

Within each group, the analyse team reviewed the number and quintessence 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 yardstick cancer risk models.