A medical test that is used to detect cancer can actually contribute to the disease, research suggests.
Automated tomography (CT) scans use X -rays to take detailed images of the body and are used to diagnose and control diseases such as cancer and bone injuries, as well as to help with operations and the effectiveness of certain treatments.
However, there is little to no regulation of the broadcast scanners and radiation levels can vary strongly machine to machine.
In 2009, researchers estimate that high doses of radiation from CT scans were responsible for two percent of all cancers (or approximately 30,000 a year).
And constant research indicates that as the number of CT scans increases, related cancers are likely to rise.
CT scans can be life-saving tests, catch diseases or bleeding early enough to be treated.
However, experts say that they are sometimes prescribed too much and unnecessary, possibly because of the possibilities for making money for hospitals, because the tests are very expensive, or from the fears of doctors to miss a diagnosis and be charged.
CT scans are used to diagnose and follow cancers and bone injuries
The above shows the estimated percentage of lifelong risk of death due to cancer that can be attributed to the radiation of a single CT scan of the head
Dr. Rebecca Smith-Bindman, professor at the University of California-San Francisco Medical School, is one of the researchers in the 2009 and ongoing study.
She said NBC News: 'It is incomprehensible. We continue to do more CTs, and the doses keep going up. '
Dr. Smith Bindman said between two machines that one patients could expose to 10 to 15 times higher radiation doses than the other.
She added: “There is a very large variation and the doses vary with an order of size – ten -fold, not 10 percent differently – for patients seen for the same clinical problem.”
According to IMV, around 93 million scans are performed every year, according to IMV, a research company for a medical market – and that number is increasing.
Exposure to radiation is measured in millisievers (MSV), which measures the amount of radiation absorbed by the body.
People are exposed every day to small amounts of radiation from their background environment or through things like flying.
A 2007 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine said oneIf the risks for one person of CT scans are not great, “the increasing exposure to radiation in the population can be a matter of public health in the future.”
The authors of the study wrote cancer that can be attributed to CT radiation, can fall from 1.5 percent to two percent in the reach of 1.5 percent.
The study from 2009 Dr. Smith-Bindman was involved in the radiation dose associated with the 11 most common types of CT scans that were performed in 2008 on 1,119 adult patients.
Exposure to radiation varied greatly. Average doses varied from 2 MSV for a cup of CT to 31 MSV for a belly and pelvis CT.
For comparison: a flight between New York and Tokyo exposes a person to 0.19 MSV. An X -ray of the stomach radiates 0.6 msv.
The researchers, however, discovered that the amount of radiation that was emitted by CT scanners varied strongly in the four hospitals from which they collected data -with a 13 -time difference between the highest and lowest doses for each scantype.
The team then estimated cancers due to CT scans based on age and gender of the patient.
About one in 270 women and one in 600 men who underwent a CT scan of arteries near their hearts at the age of 40 will develop cancer from that scan.
The above shows the estimated percentage of lifelong risk of death due to cancer that can be attributed to the radiation of a single CT scan of the abdomen
About one in 8,100 women and one in 11,000 men who had a routine head of CT scan at 40 will develop cancer from that scan.
For patients in the twenty, the risks were about double and for patients in their 60s the risks were halved.
The researchers did not mention what kind of cancer the patients can develop.
Cancers that are previously linked to radiation, include leukemia, chest, colon, bladder, stomach, ovary, lung and liver cancer, according to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
The team concluded: “Radiation doses of generally conducted diagnostic CT investigations are higher and more variable than in general quoted, which emphasizes the need for greater standardization between institutions.”
CT scans are life-saving medical scans, but they are not without risk.
In an attempt to tackle the problem, new Medicare regulations this year will require effective hospitals and imaging centers to collect and share information about the radiation they broadcast by their scanners.
The regulations also require a more careful inspection of the dosage, quality and necessity of CT scans.
The new rules, issued in the last weeks of the BIDEN administration, are rolled out in hospitals and outpatient clinics and providers for three years can be fines if they do not comply, starting in 2027.
The Trump government has not commented on its plans to follow, revise or reverse the new policy.
