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The Standard – Hong Kong’s First FREE English Newspaper

Scan scare
The STandard  (Hong Kong) Alan Zarembo September 16, 2008

Generating tens of billions of dollars each year, CT scanning has become an economic engine for hospitals and doctors. “It’s gotten into the culture of doctors,” says Geoffrey Rubin, a Stanford University radiologist.

But with the boom has a come a rising concern that the abundant use of radiation is beginning to have a subtle effect on health. Although the risk of a single CT scan 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 recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine estimated that CT scans administered today could cause up to 2 percent 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. Scans can cost from a few hundred dollars for a single organ to a few thousand for a full-body image.

Today, scanner manufacturers, including Siemens and General Electric, tout the ease of making money with the devices. Just two scans a day can pay for a machine and its operation over five years.Ten scans a day can bring in more than US$400,000 (HK$3.11 million) a year in profit………………………….

Medical tests are now the biggest source of radiation exposure, recently surpassing background radiation, according to the National Council on Radiation Protection & Measurements in the United States. Of particular concern is the rising use of CT scans for children and pregnant women.

For example, an abdominal scan in a five-year-old carries a 0.1 percent risk of triggering a fatal cancer, nearly 10 times the risk in adults older than 35.

The National Academy of Sciences weighed in on the issue in a 2006 report, saying that there is no safe level of radiation exposure and that even small doses pose some health risks.

The Standard – Hong Kong’s First FREE English Newspaper

Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, uranium, radioactive

September 16, 2008 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | environment