Word: ct
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...them all just using plain films. Today, however, there's a good chance that after ordering up that plain film, the emergency doctor will send you down the hall for a second test - one that exposes you to many hundreds of times the radiation of a plain film: a CT scan. The radiation from a CT scan, or computed tomography, actually has been shown to cause cancer - quite a bit of it. A recent report, published in November in the New England Journal of Medicine suggests that the radiation from current CT-scan use - estimated at more than 62 million...
That's right. It was the sizeable profits from the Fab Four's record sales that a company called EMI (Electric and Musical Industries) invested in research, which led to the first commercially available CT scanner in the early 1970s. CT was a huge plus: It could image so many things in the body that were difficult, painful or simply impossible to see otherwise - brain tumors, spine problems, problems in the liver or lung. Nevertheless, in the '90s, CT scans were largely upstaged by the vastly more complex - but radiation-free - MRI scan. Overall, few docs would disagree that...
...least one reason for the overuse of CT is certainly financial. Major insurers still pay fairly well for the scans. While it's true that advanced technology has made CT machines better, faster and more affordable over the years, the only thing that's really different now versus five years ago is that more hospitals are going bankrupt - they need to be a lot keener at making money to survive. So, for starters, they're hiring doctors: The hospital pays them a salary while billing for the services they order or perform. (Doctors in private practice, unlike hospital-employed doctors...
...dying from smoking, not wearing seatbelts or sunscreen, eating preservatives or biking without a helmet is relatively low. Our parents' generation, after all, (mostly) survived the clutches of these and many other perils. But while we generally heed the warnings about cigarettes, seatbelts and sunscreen, we go on having CT scans without putting up the slightest fuss. CT is a controllable risk. Doctors can practice medicine very well, most of the time, without CT scans. We need to avoid them when...
...question is, can truly rational decisions be made regarding their use? The statistics are hard to calculate. It would take all the computers at the Mayo clinic to compare the real risk to your life of doing a CT scan in a given situation with that of not doing one. And if the doctor can't compute that risk, there's no real way that a second-guessing patient can. But you can, and should, be more than a little reticent to have a CT scan unless it's absolutely needed...