A typical CT scan delivers enough radiation to give a healthy person a 1/500 chance of getting a cancer in their lifetime that they otherwise would not have gotten. The risk is higher for children.

We have people working around low-flying aircraft all the time. I’m guessing the associated job risks are better.

When you take those jobs, it’s because you want to make money, not because your life is at risk, there’s information asymmetry between you and the medical provider who is indirectly rewarded for billing for scans, and the overarching medical system prioritized CT scans over MRIs while our engineering culture failed to establish something safer and cheaper.

Would you play Russian Roulette with a revolver with 500 chambers and 1 bullet? What if by doing so a hospital would receive thousands of dollars, and would go on to be paid many more thousands of dollars if you got unlucky?

The cost-benefit trade-off is there, and the powers that be are prioritizing cancer.

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tennysont 4 days ago | parent [-]

Fascinating---I appreciate you raising awareness. This information was a big update for me, so I looked for a source and found roughly the same numbers (though my numbers were 1/1000, possibly because newer CT exams seem to be slightly safer). From [1]:

> ...93 million CT examinations performed ... projected to result in approximately 103 000 future cancers ... cancer risk was higher in children ... CT-associated cancers could eventually account for 5% of all new cancer diagnoses annually.

Although keep in mind that these numbers do need context. cancer != death. That ranges from cold comfort (in the case painful chemo treatment & years of fear) to a critical factor (based on how the USA diagnoses it, approximately 6% of men will have prostate cancer that does not require treatment).

Based only on these numbers above and my prior beliefs, I would say that that either

A) CT scans are a necessary evil that haven't been adequately replaced

B) These numbers less problematic than one might expect, due to some quirk of the data

I generally trust the USA's medical establishment on new treatment, though I've heard that they're slow to clamp down on outdated treatments.

[1] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullar... https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/radiati...

	▲	odyssey7 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		I appreciate you looking into the numbers to verify. The 1/1000 odds seem better, though still important. Also, framed another way, 5% of cancer cases caused by CT scans would mean that 1 in 20 people in the cancer ward were placed there by a CT scan. Or alternatively, phasing out CT scans would prevent 1 in 20 cancer cases, with prevention being worth more than a cure for every 1 cancer patient in 20.