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We Are Giving Ourselves Cancer

nytimes.com

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Re: We Are Giving Ourselves Cancer

#51

Post by DenisM »

pessimism wrote: post #22

Any people here who go to the dentist? Specifically, the American Dental Association's guidelines for heathy persons suggest that * children receive 1 x-ray every 1-2 years, * teens every 1.5-3 years, * and adults every 2-3 years. ~ http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/243952.php I was personally very surprised and alarmed by this.

Before getting alarmed consider doing the math to assign numerical value to level of danger. Wikipedia article on Sievert has the formulas for it, as well as benchmark values to judge the outcome.

If you don't want to do the math, consider this handy chart: http://xkcd.com/radiation/

Re: We Are Giving Ourselves Cancer

#52

Post by vectorjohn »

dnautics wrote: post #15

Big elephant in the room: Pre-test ban atmospheric nuclear tests. Of course, there's nothing anyone can do about it. The somatic damage period is probably more or less over, but we are transitioning through the genetic damage period.

If this was a big elephant in the room, then I would expect there to be some modicum of evidence that this causes any increase in cancer risk. Maybe a shred of evidence that cancer rates have gone up? Anything. We'll wait.

Re: We Are Giving Ourselves Cancer

#54

Post by sgustard »

sjtrny wrote: post #12

"We are giving ourselves cancer by living long enough to develop it" is what the title should have said. This article is the worst form of opinion.

Agree, and it's not opinion, it's scare-mongering linkbait. Ridiculous to see that along with no actionable data from NYT. I'm giving myself a stroke just thinking about it.

Re: We Are Giving Ourselves Cancer

#56

Post by Gatsky »

DenisM wrote: post #3

>A single CT scan exposes a patient to the amount of radiation that epidemiologic evidence shows can be cancer-causing That does not look right to me. A single CT scan is 2-7 millisieverts, and exposures under 13 can not be linked to health effects - look for UNSCEAR in http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sievert If you do the math by ICRP formulae, you end up with increase chance of cancer of 1 in 2600 over the next 20 y…

Epidemiological studies likely overstate the risk. If you read the Australian study for example, they certainly could not determine with certainty how many CT scans an individual had, because they did not include CT scans performed in hospitals. I would say that MOST CT scans performed in children would happen in hospitals. Therefore, a person having one CT may simply be a marker of them having many more CTs which are not captured by the study.

There were also other unusual correlations in the data. For example, CT scans of the brain seemed to increase the risk of cancer elsewhere in the body, and scans of the abdomen increased the risk of brain cancer. This seems implausible, and implies to me that at least some of the correlation between CTs and cancer is likely to be explained by some third factor whereby people with an increased risk for cancer have more CT scans. The most telling correlations are probably for rare tumours, like soft tissue cancers eg sarcoma, which show an increased risk post CT. These cancers are rare and have few known risk factors, so this correlation is more believable. But these events were much rarer than all cancers in the cohort.

Re: We Are Giving Ourselves Cancer

#57

Post by jonnathanson »

pessimism wrote: post #22

Any people here who go to the dentist? Specifically, the American Dental Association's guidelines for heathy persons suggest that * children receive 1 x-ray every 1-2 years, * teens every 1.5-3 years, * and adults every 2-3 years. ~ http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/243952.php I was personally very surprised and alarmed by this.

The amount of radiation you receive in one dental x-ray is approximately 1/8th the amount you receive in a single cross-country plane flight.

I mean, you still don't want to overdo it. All things being equal, you want to limit your exposure to ionizing radiation across the board. But dental x-rays generally aren't a public health menace, and they're seldom overprescribed to a dangerous degree. I'd much rather get a dental x-ray that prevents costly and dangerous dental disease in the proximate future, given the fairly low dosage involved.

Re: We Are Giving Ourselves Cancer

#58

Post by gcb0 »

DenisM wrote: post #3

>A single CT scan exposes a patient to the amount of radiation that epidemiologic evidence shows can be cancer-causing That does not look right to me. A single CT scan is 2-7 millisieverts, and exposures under 13 can not be linked to health effects - look for UNSCEAR in http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sievert If you do the math by ICRP formulae, you end up with increase chance of cancer of 1 in 2600 over the next 20 y…

you are probably right. I know several people who fought or died of cancer. None ever had a CT scan. Or that many X-rays to begin with.

Re: We Are Giving Ourselves Cancer

#59

Post by a8da6b0c91d »

DenisM wrote: post #51
pessimism wrote: post #22

Any people here who go to the dentist? Specifically, the American Dental Association's guidelines for heathy persons suggest that * children receive 1 x-ray every 1-2 years, * teens every 1.5-3 years, * and adults every 2-3 years. ~ http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/243952.php I was personally very surprised and alarmed by this.

Before getting alarmed consider doing the math to assign numerical value to level of danger. Wikipedia article on Sievert has the formulas for it, as well as benchmark values to judge the outcome. If you don't want to do the math, consider this handy chart: http://xkcd.com/radiation/

The standard defense of the safety of x-ray machines seems to be that you get more radiation from long haul flights. Well, there's a strong argument that flying isn't safe either. Pilots and stewards apparently have elevated cancer rates.

Re: We Are Giving Ourselves Cancer

#60

Post by pedalpete »

Zigurd wrote: post #8
DenisM wrote: post #3

>A single CT scan exposes a patient to the amount of radiation that epidemiologic evidence shows can be cancer-causing That does not look right to me. A single CT scan is 2-7 millisieverts, and exposures under 13 can not be linked to health effects - look for UNSCEAR in http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sievert If you do the math by ICRP formulae, you end up with increase chance of cancer of 1 in 2600 over the next 20 y…

> Now if you do a scan every year for the next 20 years your chances go up to 1 in 130 Unless the article is wrong about the number of CT scans many people are getting, that's going to result is a huge number of avoidable cancer cases.

I'm not very good at math, but I'm reading that as a 0.7% increase in your chance of getting cancer.

From 'Physics for Future Presidents', they say it is commonly accepted that we have a 20% chance of DYING from cancer before calculating for outside influences. http://books.google.com.au/books?id=6DBnS2g-KrQC&pg=PA98&lpg...

Let's say the average person does not get a CT scan every year for 20 years, but rather gets 5 scans over their lifetime. Those scans may detect an early stage of cancer, therefore saving the persons life.

They're risk of dying from cancer is approximately 20.2%. I suggest with the CT scan, their still coming out on top.

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