David E Bratt MD

A re­cent pub­li­ca­tion in the British Med­ical Jour­nal es­ti­mat­ed that in the UK need­less X-rays cause 800 can­cers a year in men and 1,300 in women. About one-third of CT scans are con­sid­ered un­nec­es­sary in the UK. Fig­ures for T&T are un­avail­able. Tak­ing a sim­ple chest X-ray as one unit, is the equiv­a­lent num­ber of X-rays for var­i­ous ra­di­o­log­i­cal pro­ce­dures. A skull X-ray is the equiv­a­lent of re­ceiv­ing the ra­di­a­tion from five chest X-rays. A mam­mo­gram, 20. An X-ray of the ab­domen is the same as tak­ing 35 X-rays of the chest in one day. CT of the brain, 100. An in­tra­venous uro­gram (to de­lin­eate the shape and size, etc, of the kid­neys), the equiv­a­lent of 150 chest X-rays. CT of the chest, 350. CT of the ab­domen, 400 chest X-rays, the same as a "sim­ple" bar­i­um en­e­ma. You would think that doc­tors and es­pe­cial­ly ra­di­ol­o­gists (doc­tors who spe­cialise in X-rays) would know about the risks of X-ray? Not at all. In one sur­vey in the Unit­ed States, on­ly nine per cent of emer­gency de­part­ment doc­tors and 47 per cent of ra­di­ol­o­gists were aware of the in­creased can­cer risk as­so­ci­at­ed with com­put­ed to­mog­ra­phy or CTs. X-rays, like oth­er in­ves­ti­ga­tions, are ex­treme­ly use­ful tools, which, when used wise­ly and care­ful­ly, can be of in­valu­able as­sis­tance in help­ing doc­tors to make a di­ag­no­sis. Like all tools they must be used in the ap­pro­pri­ate con­text. Oth­er­wise they can be dan­ger­ous.