RSNA News - September 2004

A press release has been sent to the medical news media for the following scientific article appearing in the September 2004 issue of Radiology (rsna.org/radiologyjnl):

"Estimated Radiation Risks Potentially Associated with Full-Body CT Screening"

As the healthcare community debates the pros and cons of full-body CT screening, a special report outlines the potential cancer risks associated with these scans.

David J. Brenner, Ph.D., D.Sc., and Carl D. Elliston, M.S., from the Center for Radiological Research at Columbia University in New York City, estimated the lifetime cancer mortality risks from single full-body scans and from annual full-body scans.

Using a standard radiation riser-estimation methodology, they determined that the typical effective dose from a single full-body scan is about 12 mSv.

Using A-bomb cancer mortality data, they found that a single full-body scan to a 45-year-old would result in an estimated lifetime attributable cancer mortality risk of around 0.08 percent. A 45-year-old who plans to have annual full-body CT up to age 75 (30 scans) would accrue an overall estimated lifetime attributable risk of cancer mortality of about 1.9 percent.

The researchers write: "Radiation-induced lung cancer is estimated to be the dominant cause of cancer mortality from full-body CT scans. This not unexpected because, while radiation-related cancer risks generally decrease markedly with increasing age at exposure, radiation-induced lung cancer does not apparently show this decrease in risk until approximately age 55."

Graph shows estimated excess cancer mortality risk according to age at time of exposure in a stationary population, with U.S. mortality risk rates, that is exposed to a radiation dose of 10 mSv. Data are averages between the sexes. (Radiology 2004;232:735-738) © 2004 RSNA. All rights reserved. Printed with permission.

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