Re: Children may get too much radiation in CT scan

[denison.8@osu.edu]

B. Cohen wrote:

>On Wed, 24 Jan 2001 denison.8@osu.edu wrote:
>
>> Note that the following two paragraphs of the article nicely contradict
>> each other.
>>
>> >And up to 500 children a year in the United States alone could die
>> >from cancer because of it, a second team of researchers said.
>>
>> <snip>
>>
>> >"In the United States, of approximately 600,000 abdominal and
>> >head CT examinations annually performed in children under the age
>> >of 15 years, a rough estimate is that 500 of these individuals might
>> >ultimately die from cancer attributable to the CT radiation."
>>
>> Huge difference between the 500 deaths _per year_ stated in the first
>> paragraph and 500 deaths over the collective lifetimes of all the kids who
>> got CT's last year.
>
>
>	--There is nothing contradictory here. If one year's treatment
>will eventually cause 500 cancers, and such treatments are conducted every
>year, there will eventually be 500 deaths per year.

Your statement is correct, but the article doesn't lay out these conditions
at any point.  It says that the procedure could kill 500 kids per year.
Maybe I'm being picky about semantics, but the vast majority of the 500
people who die each year from CT-induced cancer in this hypothetical
scenario will be adults, not children.

In addition, this new view of the scenario doesn't change the fact that it
will be difficult (if not impossible) to detect a change of 500 cancer
fatalities in such a large population.

And if I may be permitted to broadcast replies to the handful of e-mails
sent to me directly, I will say that I strongly believe in the value CT as
a diagnostic tool and think that the benefits outweigh the risks in most
cases, even at the higher radiation doses.  I also believe strongly in dose
minimization where it can be accomplished without causing harm to the
patient as a result of delays, etc.


Eric Denison
1729 Penworth Drive
Columbus OH 43229-5216
denison.8@osu.edu
(614) 433-0387


************************************************************************
The RADSAFE Frequently Asked Questions list, archives and subscription
information can be accessed at http://www.ehs.uiuc.edu/~rad/radsafe.html