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sakex 5 days ago

What about MRI? Just had one. Sorry if it's a stupid question, I don't know much about this

hylaride 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

MRI's themselves produce no cancer risk as they're not ionizing radiation. There's SOME questions about SOME of the dyes used for SOME MRI procedures, but those are usually used in situations where the alternative is worse - so do it.

ashleyn 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

MRI doesn't use ionising radiation so it's a stretch. Most likely cause would have to be some toxic effect of the contrast dye (as opposed to any sort of ionising radiation), but no compelling evidence exists for that.

tgv 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

MRI's magnetic field is not strong enough. CT scans use Röntgen radiation, and that's known to cause ionization (the waves can displace electrons), which --in DNA-- potentially causes cancer.

bluGill 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Depends. MRI itself is safe, but they often add "contrast" which is known to cause cancer (I'm not clear on if there is more than one choice for contrast though, or if they all cause cancer). Of course contrast is mostly used when they looking at a something - likely a tumor that might or might not be cancer to decide how to treat it - in that case does it matter that your long term cancer prospects go up when without it your short term prospects are not good.

rasmus1610 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

There is no compelling evidence that MRI contrast agent causes cancer. Gadolinium (the stuff that’s in the contrast agent) can deposit in the body, e.g. in the brain, but if this even has any consequences is still unclear. Nonetheless there is some nice research going on how to drastically reduce the amount of contrast agent needs to be administered through image postprocessing.

bluGill 5 days ago | parent [-]

Hmm. When I check a few years ago what looked like authortive people said it was - I will admit to not being an expert though.

mthomasmw 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

citation?

petters 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

You're safe