Imaging X-rays Cause Cancer: A Call to Action for Caregivers and Patients

"Imaging and Cancer: Kids Most in Peril

The above being said, the indisputable fact, and in my opinion rendered truly indisputable by the BEIR VII report, is that medical x-rays cause cancer. BEIR VII also emphasizes that there may be no safe lower limit. This statement taken as said has the potential to cause considerable alarm, so my intuitive modification is that perhaps below the dose of a standard body CT, which is approximately 10 mSieverts (mSv; units that radiation dose is measured in), there is likely negligible if any risk for an individual test.

However, even 1 body CT scan (1 CT scan of only 1 of the following regions: the chest region, the abdominal region, or the pelvic region) carries with it some element of risk. The risk that BEIR VII reports is 1 in 1000 chance of developing cancer from a 10 mSv radiation dose. In my prior report, I described what is written on the US Food and Drug Administration Web site, which is a 1 chance in 2000 of developing cancer from a dose of 10 mSv. The BEIR VII report doubles that risk. The risk in children is even higher, with a reported chance of 1 in 550 of developing cancer."

A table then follows with radiation doses for each procedure, of which I'm listing a few here:

X-rays:
Chest - 0.02 (mSv)
Head - 0.07
Upper GI - 3.6
Lower GI - 6.4
Mammogram - 0.13

CT Scan:
Head - 2.0
Abdomen - 10.0
Chest - 20-40
Pulmonary angiography - 20-40

PET - CT - 25

This article then says "Risk escalates with multiphase acquisition in a single CT study, and with multiple individual CT tests."

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