CT Scan Radiation May Lead to 29,000 Cancers, Researchers Warn

Dec. 15, 2009— -- Radiation doses from computed tomographic (CT) scans are higher than previously thought and vary widely, even among the same types of examinations, two studies showed.

Radiation from medical tests is generally measured in units called millisieverts, or mSv. One mSv is equivalent to the estimated dose of background radiation the average American absorbs in a year.

In the first study, based on information from four San Francisco-area hospitals, median effective doses ranged from 2 mSv for a routine head scan to 31 mSv for a multiphase abdomen and pelvis scan, according to Dr. Rebecca Smith-Bindman of the University of California San Francisco, and her colleagues.

Radiation doses as low as 10 mSv have been linked to an increased cancer risk among survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bomb blasts, the researchers reported in the latest issue of the journal Archives of Internal Medicine.

The issue is important, investigators say, because over the past two decades, the use of diagnostic CT has skyrocketed from 3 million scans nationwide in 1980 to 70 million in 2007.

In the latest study, exposure varied widely both within and between hospitals. In many cases, a 13-fold difference existed between the highest and lowest dose for each study type, "highlighting the need for greater standardization across institutions," the researchers wrote.

In addition to standardizing procedures, they suggested reducing the number of unnecessary CT scans and tracking dose information for individual patients to lower overall radiation exposure from medical imaging.

A second study, by Amy Berrington de González of the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Md., and colleagues, projected that 29,000 future cancers will be directly attributable to CT scans performed in 2007.

In an accompanying editorial, Dr. Rita Redberg of the University of California San Francisco, editor of Archives of Internal Medicine, said the two studies "make us question if we have gotten carried away in our enthusiasm" for the use of CT.