Are CT Scans Sometimes Too Risky?
Study Shows Radiation Doses From CT Scans Vary Widely By Kathleen Doheny WebMD Health News Reviewed By Elizabeth Klodas, MD, FACC Dec. 14, 2009 — Radiation doses from CT scans are often high and vary widely, and excessively high doses may contribute substantially to future cancers, a study shows. CT scans are noninvasive medical tests that combine special X-ray equipment and computers to produce detailed cross sectional images of the body. The number of CT scans performed has exploded over the last three decades, growing from about 3 million yearly in 1980 to about 70 million in 2007. The new study is published in the Archives of Internal Medicine. Study researcher Rebecca Smith-Bindman, MD, of the University of California San Francisco, says the idea for the research began “when I was looking at some individual scans; I was surprised at how high the radiation dose was. I thought it was time to start looking.” The new research comes in the wake of the discovery earlier this year that
