Re: patient's fear of diagnostic x-ray exposure

["Philippe Duport" <pduport@home.com>]

There are indications that medical X-ray examinations not only do not lead
to increased risk of cancer, but may even reduce this risk (G.R. Howe.  Lung
cancer mortality between 1950 and 1987 after exposure to fractionated
moderate-dose-rate radiation in the Canadian fluoroscopy cohort study and
comparison with lung cancer mortality in the atomic bomb survivors study.
Radiation Research Vol 142, pp 295-304 (1995).  Dr. Howe tried hard, and
unsuccessfully, to find flaws in his own study to explain an apparent
protective effect of radiation exposures below 1 Gy.  This is only one of
many
publications indicative of, at the very least, sublinearity or thresholds.
A more recent U.K. study on cancer risk in patients who received
radio-iodine
treatments (I do not have the reference at hand, it was in the Intern. J. of
Radiation Biology in 1999)
also seems to indicate a reduced risk of cancer.  Still more recent info
(Radiation Research  Vol 152, Dec. 1999) on cancer mortality and
morbidity in Kerala state (India) where tens of thousands of people are
exposed, from birth to death at some 80 years of age in average, to natural
radiation background several times the current annual limit for radiation
workers, do not reveal any positive trend between dose rate and cancer
mortality/morbidity.  In fact, if there are trends, they seem to be negative
rather than positive.

Philippe Duport
International Centre for Low Dose Radiation Research
Institute of the Environment
University of Ottawa
pduport@uottawa.ca and pduport@home.com

(PS: I will be away - Conference in low dose effects in Kerala - until Feb
23)


----- Original Message -----
From: Sandy Everage <severage@life.edu>
To: Multiple recipients of list <radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu>
Sent: Saturday, February 12, 2000 12:53 PM
Subject: patient's fear of diagnostic x-ray exposure


> Considering the dialogue that has been taking place lately about the
> linear non- threshold theory of LDR vs. radiation hormesis, what would
> be your response to a diagnostic radiology patient's fear of medically
> indicated x-ray exposure?
>
> Sandy Everage B.S.R.T.(R)(T)
> Assistant Professor
> Life University
> Marietta, Ga.  30062
> severage@life.edu
> (770) 426-2669
>
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