CT scans dangerous and can cause cancer, radiologist warns doctors

Doctors are regularly referring their patients for a routine CT (computed tomography) scan – without having even a clue of the high level of radiation and their cancer-causing effect, a radiologist has said.

Radiologist Joseph Price wants doctors to become better educated about the radiation levels from a CT scan.  One scan is equivalent to 600 chest x-rays, says Price.  “It is a rare physician ordering standard-type CT scans who has the slightest idea of the actual level of total radiation to which the patient is being exposed,” he writes.   

Price is concerned that CT scans increase the risk of cancer, something else that doctors seem to know little about.

(Source: Journal of the American Medical Association, 2009; 301: 2324).