BIG NEWS - CT Causes Leukemia ?

[KMATTOX at aol.com]

I am co posting this to both Trauma and ccm-l lists because of the intense  
interest of both groups.     
 
Two years, TWO YEARS ago, this subject was discussed in  some detail on both 
of these list servers.    Today the NEJM and  tonight, the major national TV 
news programs made this subject a BIG DEAL.   What took them so long to 
discover what the debaters on these list servers  discussed two years ago.         
 
Today the New England Journal of Medicine and also published in a Ft  
Lauderdale paper are reports that CT is overused and it can lead to  cancer.      The 
NEJM article has some of the  following comments:
 
1.  Up to 1/3 of CTs in the United States are ordered unnecessarily,  often 
before the patient is ever examined (KLM Agrees with the later statement  but 
believes that the un necessary figure may be as high as 90%)
 
2.    Up to 20 million adults and 1 million children  have un necessary CT 
scans annually
 
3.    100-200 times more radiation is inflicted on a  body after a CT 
compared to a routine chest X-ray
 
4.    2% of cancers seen in 20 years will be secondary  to CT scans performed 
today.
 
5.    ECRI   (  _http://www.ecri.org/_ (http://www.ecri.org/)   ) has 
indicated that  3000 persons with cancer today are secondary to excess radiation 
secondary to CT  scanning.     
 
I do not know if these suggestions are true or not,   
so...............................I looked at population based incidence of  cancer in 1970, 1980, and 
the last 10 years thinking I would see a flat line  incidence of leukemia and 
lymphoma per 100,000 population.     However 
......................................................
 
I have been told by one of the most successful plaintiff attorneys that I  
know that she has attended a number of conferences preparing plaintiff attorneys 
 to sue on the basis of a patient having cancer, lymphoma, and leukemia 
secondary  to CT scanning earlier in life.   The focus of these seminars is to  
lead attorneys to focus on class action suits, especially against doctors, in  
patients with cancer and in whom there was ANY question of un necessary CT  
scanning or excessive CT scanning earlier in the cancer patient's  life.   
 
Anticipating this subject, several months ago, this and other subjects was  
put onto the Las Vegas Trauma Conference ( _www.trauma-criticalcare.com_ 
(http://www.trauma-criticalcare.com)   )  It is all there.       
 
Think of this day and the attention that CT scanning has gotten the next  
time you give a verbal or written order for a CT scan, especially if you have  
not yet examined the patient and obtained a simpler more indicated  test.    
 
k



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