CT Scans Dangerous For Children
CT Scans Dangerous For Children – A radiology expert is urging doctors to obtain formal written consent from parents before ordering CT scans on children, warning that the risk of a single scan triggering a fatal cancer is 70 times greater than the chance of dying from a general anaesthetic.
Soaring rates of CT scan ordering by doctors in general triggered a national alert by the Medicare watchdog, which warned that patients were being exposed to unnecessary cancer risks by being given scans for complaints as trivial as back pain.
CT, or computed tomography, involves hundreds of times more radiation than a simple X-ray. Statistical analysis suggests 430 cancer deaths a year may be due to ionising radiation from both procedures.
Radiology expert John de Campo has warned that the risks of CT scans for young people up to the age of 20 are much higher than for adults, because their cells are dividing more rapidly and more easily damaged, and because they have more remaining years of life for a fatal cancer to develop.
Professor de Campo, from the faculty of medicine at Bond University, said CT body scans were so strong that one in every 500 babies under the age of 12 months subjected to the procedure could be expected to develop a fatal cancer in later life, reducing to one in 800 if the scan occurred at one year of age.
The calculations were derived from analyses of the effects of radiation doses from the nuclear bomb blasts in Japan in 1945, compared with the doses delivered by CT scans.
Tags: 12 Months, Back Pain, Body Scans, Bomb Blasts, Bond University, Cancer Deaths, Cancer Risks, Computed Tomography, Effects Of Radiation, Expert John, Faculty Of Medicine, Fatal Cancer, General Anaesthetic, Medicare, Nuclear Bomb, Radiation Doses, Radiology, Statistical Analysis, Watchdog, X Ray
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