(Tuesday, 1 may HealthDay News) - A new study of young people who had undergone a CT scan suggests that their risk of dying from a disease linked to exposure to radiation is much less of the initial disease met.
The study has weaknesses, and a specialist said that he confirmed his belief that the scans are safe but is not directly prove. Yet, the main author of the study said is the debate on the security of computed tomography in perspective.
"We are oriented towards the camp that you committed an error on scanning rather than not, because the chance of dying from one to two is very small," said study author Rob Zondervan, a student of medicine at the University of New England. "" "" More often than otherwise, patients should receive that CT scan because the risk of the underlying cause is higher than that of radiation. »
Doctors use CT scans to find signs of disorder in the body of a variety of causes, including cancer, heart, abdominal, pulmonary and injury problems, accidents or other injuries. In some cases, patients can obtain several CT scans, even in a day, because doctors are looking for problems in different organs.
Dr. Carl Schultz, a Professor of emergency medicine at the school of Medicine of the University of California-Irvine, said doctors probably order CT scans too because they are afraid to miss something. "There is no rate acceptable miss - other than zero," he said, "it is therefore enormous pressure to make these analyses."
In the new study, Zondervan and colleagues studied what happened to more than 23,000 patients from 18 to 35 years who suffered a chest or abdominal CT scan from 2003 to 2007. They all got the scans in three hospitals in Boston.
Of those who have the chest CTs, 5 per cent to 50 per cent of the 8 133 deaths in years, the mortality rate increases to those who have more than one or two scans. Researchers estimate that 12 people in the whole of the Group would have developed cancer due to exposure to analyze the radiation.
The results were similar - ranging from 2% to 33%, and more deaths than 15,000 receiving abdominal CTs. Researchers believe 23 people in all of the Group would have obtained the cancer due to exposure to radiation.
"Patients get scans of 15 or more, all had large enough disease, where the expected mortality was likely to occur much earlier that the chances of cancer induced by radiation takes effect," says of Zondervan. In other words: those who were ill, requiring the more CT scans, would probably die before any cancer caused by radiation of CT could start their position.
Schultz warned that the figures on the potential effects of radiation of CT scan are based on assumptions. He added that the study suggests, but does not prove, CT to save lives.
"I agree their principle and their general conclusion that the risk not to make CTs is superior to them," he said.
However, patients should try to avoid radiation when this is possible, he said. "Wonder whether the same information could be obtained otherwise", he said. "In some cases, the ultrasound could better, say, on possible appendicitis."
The findings are scheduled to be released on 1 may at the annual meeting of the American Roentgen Ray Society, Vancouver. The data and conclusions should be considered as provisional, until this published in a journal by peer.
More information
To learn more about CT scans, try the U.S. National Library of Medicine.
SOURCES: Rob Zondervan, student of medicine, University of New England, Middleford, Maine; Carl Schultz, M.D., Professor and Director, emergency medicine disaster medical services, the school of Medicine of the University of California-Irvine. 1 May 2012, presentation, American Roentgen Ray Society annual meeting, Vancouver
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