Study Downplays Risk of CT Scans - MedicineNet

Blogger's Note: cancer patients know this; the concern is 'excess' or unnecessary scans (as indicated in the article)

Study Downplays Risk of CT Scans - MedicineNet

"More often than not, patients should be getting that CT scan because the risk of the underlying cause is higher than from radiation."

"...The findings were similar -- with deaths ranging from 2 percent to 33 percent -- in the more than 15,000 who got abdominal CTs. The researchers think 23 people in the entire group would have gotten cancer due to radiation exposure."

""In the patients getting 15 or more scans, all of them had pretty significant disease, where their expected mortality was likely to occur much sooner than the chances of the radiation-induced cancer taking effect," Zondervan said. In other words: Those who were the sickest, requiring the most CT scans, would probably die before any cancer caused by the CT radiation could start hurting them."

open access: Cancer risks associated with external radiation from diagnostic imaging procedures - 2012 - CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians

Cancer risks associated with external radiation from diagnostic imaging procedures -  2012 - CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians