CT scans can be better medicine for doctors than for patients – Los Angeles Times

CT scans can be better medicine for doctors than for patients

They provide detailed views of internal organs, but the price is increased doses of radiation.

By Alan Zarembo, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
September 7, 2008

“………………………………Doctors in the U.S. ordered 68.7 million CT scans last year, more than triple the number in 1995, according to IMV Medical Information Division, a medical market research group in Des Plaines, Ill.Generating tens of billions of dollars in billing each year, CT scanning has become an economic engine for hospitals and doctors, and the once-exotic million-dollar devices are starting to be found in private practices.”It’s gotten into the culture of doctors,” said Geoffrey Rubin, a Stanford University radiologist.But with the boom has come a rising concern that the abundant use of radiation is beginning to have a subtle effect on the health of the nation.Although the risk of a single CT scan to an individual is minuscule, even a tiny increase in radiation exposure spread over a large population can eventually add up to tens of thousands of cancer deaths a year.A controversial study published last November in the New England Journal of Medicine estimated that CT scans administered today could cause up to 2% of cancer deaths in two or three decades…………………………………….Some researchers estimate that up to a third of scans could have been avoided or replaced by safer technologies, such as ultrasound or magnetic resonance imaging.

“In 20 or 30 years, the radiation debate will be like the smoking debate today,” Goldin said. “People will say, ‘Why did I get this imaging in the first place?’ “

CT scans can be better medicine for doctors than for patients – Los Angeles Times

Tags: nuclear.antinuclear, radiation, uranium

September 9, 2008 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | environment