X-Rays & risks Off topic..

[Guest guest]

HI all,

I know this is 'off topic' but I'm one of those who is so against unnecessary XRays including breast scans and more (dentists et al,) from all the research I've done on it, and note I said the word 'unnecessary' that I could not resist sending this one on from Dr. Jelovseks 'newsletter' as well as the link to the whole article from the BMJ (British Medical Journal) I've included, if you do read it be certain to read the Rapid Responses as well, quite interesting.

Dee

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From Dr. R. Jelovseks E. newsletter.

We are bombarded almost daily about the risk of "this" medicine or "that" dietary habit. Sometimes both the writer of an article or the reader of that article lose perspective on whether a two fold increase in risk means a jump from 1/1000 to 2/1000 or from 25% to 50%.

"A risk of death of one in one million is generally ignored,

since we face many risks of such magnitude every day, from travelling 100 miles by car or 1000 miles by aeroplane."

However when you get up to a risk of 1 in a thousand, it becomes pertinent to you as an individual. Many x-ray (radiological) procedures can induce eventual cancers that can be fatal.

Most people forget that radiation exposure causes cancers and doctors tend to minimize these risks or sometimes be totally unaware of the magnitude of these risks.

As doctors are ordering more and more radiological studies because of their fear of being sued for missing a condition and patients are more and more demanding of radiological studies to be performed because they are distrustful of the physician's diagnosis, it is very important for both parties to know the risk of the procedure such as its cancer induction risk. For example a single CAT scan of the abdomen is probably equivalent to 500 chest xrays and has a risk of inducing a fatal cancer of about 1/2000 people.

A thallium scan for the heart has an induced cancer risk of greater than 1/1000.

Many fluoroscopic exams have a risk of 1/1000 also.

The graph that accompanies the article in the British Medical Journal is a very good representation of those risks. The point is that those studies may well be worth the cancer risk depending upon circumstances but in any case, both the patient and the doctor should know how much risk is involved. Be sure to ask about this when a bone scan, CAT scan, thyroid, liver, lung or gallbladder scan are recommended.

================= click here to see the full article

--> http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/bmj;329/7470/849

Be sure to see the responses below to this article. at the very bottom 'beyond' the references, called RAPID RESPONSES..