In recent years, there has been widespread media coverage of studies purporting to show that radiation from X-rays, CT scans and other medical imaging causes cancer.
READ FULL ARTICLE
From Medical Express
Low dose radiation from medical imaging may not raise cancer risk
the Oncology Nurse Advisor take:
An article recently published in Technology in Cancer Research & Treatment indicates that low-dose radiation from X-rays, CT scans, and other medical imaging devices may not cause cancer, despite widespread belief to the contrary.
“Although radiation is known to cause cancer at high doses and high-dose rates, no data have ever unequivocally demonstrated the induction of cancer following exposure to low doses and dose rates,” said study authors James Welsh, MS, MD, and Jeffry Siegel, PhD.
Employing a model called “linear no-threshold” (LNT), previous studies simply extrapolate the cancer-causing effects of high doses of radiation to lower doses. The model presupposes that there is no safe dose of radiation, whether high or low.
Drs. Welsh and Siegel argue that the model, which is used by regulators around the world, is “of questionable validity, utility, and applicability for estimation of cancer risks.”
New evidence shows that the human body is capable of repairing damage from low doses of radiation, and that doses from medical imaging exposure would not likely progress to overwhelm the body’s defenses.
“The more significant and actual risks associated with not undergoing an imaging procedure or undergoing a more invasive exploratory surgery are generally being ignored in both the scientific literature and popular media,” the authors concluded.
