Heather Bedard, C.H.E.
There are have been many documented studies discussing the effects of x-ray and the eventual development of various cancers. X-ray increases the risk by the exposure of specific body organs to radiation due to treatments for an array of diseases or screenings.
For example, although adults have a lower risk of developing thyroid cancer after exposure to radiation treatment of locomotive disorders than children do, the evidence is growing that this is a serious issue.[1]Another concerning development, is that women should also pay close attention to the frequency of mammograms if they opt to do them, because mammograms use a higher level of radiation than many other x-rays. The risk of developing cancer from a mammogram does not outweigh any perceived benefit.[2]
A dose-response relationship between radiation and breast cancer has been demonstrated in numerous medical radiation studies. Persons exposed early in life have especially high relative risks for many cancers, and radiation-related risk of solid cancers appears to persist throughout life.[3]Preliminary results have found that the amount of medical radiation exposure that people had since 2006 is now equal to the amount of background radiation that naturally occurs.[4]
The FDA states that the risk of developing a fatal cancer from a CT scan is about 1 in 2000 which is far less than the risk of developing a fatal cancer from natural exposure (1 in 5 or the equivalent of 400 in 2000).[5] However, with the amount of screenings done just for CT scans being 62 million in 2006, the risk factor for greater numbers of the population is growing exponentially.
Radiation does have a cumulative effect and a study on 952,420 people on the exposure to low dose ionizing radiation from medical imaging procedures showed that approximately 68% of those people had a least one imaging exposure to radiation.[6] Of those, approximately 20% had moderate levels of radiation exposure which is above the natural background radiation levels.
Many medical sites state that the radiation people receive from many different screenings is less than the amount of background radiation one would receive in a year, but they fail to mention that this amount is cumulative and that people in reality are receiving moderate to high levels of radiation - significantly raising their risk for fatal cancers.
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[1] Damber L, Johansson L, Johansson R, Larsson LG. Thyroid cancer after X-ray treatment of benign disorders of the cervical spine in adults. Acta Oncol. 2002;41(1):25-28. doi:10.1080/028418602317314028
[2] Damber L, Johansson L, Johansson R, Larsson LG. Thyroid cancer after X-ray treatment of benign disorders of the cervical spine in adults. Acta Oncol. 2002;41(1):25-28. doi:10.1080/028418602317314028
[3] Gilbert ES. Ionising radiation and cancer risks: what have we learned from epidemiology?. Int J Radiat Biol. 2009;85(6):467-482. doi:10.1080/09553000902883836
[4] Mettler FA Jr, Thomadsen BR, Bhargavan M, et al. Medical radiation exposure in the U.S. in 2006: preliminary results. Health Phys. 2008;95(5):502-507. doi:10.1097/01.HP.0000326333.42287.a2
[5] https://www.fda.gov/radiation-emitting-products/medical-x-ray-imaging/what-are-radiation-risks-ct
[6] Fazel R, Krumholz HM, Wang Y, et al. Exposure to low-dose ionizing radiation from medical imaging procedures. N Engl J Med. 2009;361(9):849-857. doi:10.1056/NEJMoa0901249