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Ionising Radiation Cancer Risk from CT scans

Experts: CT scans pose risks, need more regulation, Google hosted news, By MARILYNN MARCHIONE (AP) –24 June 2010, From long-term cancer risks to radiation overdose mistakes, CT scans pose a growing danger to the American public and need more regulation to improve their safety, imaging experts write in a leading medical journal.The articles in Thursday’s New England Journal of Medicine come a week after a story by The Associated Press detailed the overuse of imaging tests and how much the average American’s radiation dose has grown in recent years.
CT scans are super-sharp X-rays that have transformed medicine by helping doctors quickly diagnose or rule out injuries and diseases. But they use far more radiation than ordinary X-rays, and too much radiation raises the risk of cancer over time.
The federal Food and Drug Administration and Congress are considering new measures to help prevent medical mistakes — relatively rare cases where some people are accidentally given radiation overdoses.

However, far more people face potential long-term harm from ordinary scans that are done correctly but that are overused, repeated or simply unnecessary.

Each year, 10 percent of the U.S. population gets a CT scan, and use of this imaging is growing more than 10 percent per year……………..Groups that track quality-of-control measures for the federal government also should include lowering radiation dose as one of their standards, Smith-Bindman said. European countries have done this for more than a decade and doses have fallen there,

The Associated Press: Experts: CT scans pose risks, need more regulation

June 25, 2010 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | health, USA | antinuclear, cancer, nuclear technology, radioactive, reactors