Tuesday 21 June 2011

Far away from radiation


How much do you know about computerised tomography (CT) scanning? Have you ever taken the CT scanning? It is a test which uses X-ray equipment and computer software to create pictures of the inside of your body. It was originally designed to take pictures of the people’s brain. Nowadays, it is much more advanced and is also used for taking pictures of actually any part of the body. This is a modern technology which can help us to study the chest, abdomen and pelvis because it provides detailed, cross- sectional views of all types of tissue. Although CT scanning has plenty of advantages, it also has some advantages. Is it scanning dangerous? When I saw The New York Times, a headline named “Medicare Claims Show Overuse for CT Scanning” caught my interested.

In “Medicare Claims Show Overuse for CT Scanning”, the writer gives the fact that a lot of hospitals exposed patients to radiation by scanning their part of body twice on the same day which is needlessly. He also gives the research shows that double CT scan does of radiation is the same to 25,000 victims received from atom bomb in Japan after the World WarⅡ. The reasons why there are a lot of double CT scan is that medicare doesn’t restrict the use of double scans; also, some smaller hospitals may be doing the double scan just to make sure that there is no wrong diagnosis; hospitals do a great many of them can earn more.

I have been seen many sufferers especially people who got cancers do CT scan. Usually, the doctors suggest them to do it. From my point of view, doctors should base on patient’s condition to diagnose whether they should do CT scan or not. First, it makes patients receive double dose of radiation. It will increase people’s lifetime cancer risk. According to one government study, CT scans done in 2007 alone will cause about 29,000 cancers and kill nearly 15,000 Americans. From a single patient's perspective, however, the risk seems less daunting: It would take 1000 "average" scans to produce one extra case of cancer in 50-year-olds, the National Cancer Institute's Amy Berrington told Reuters Health in November. Actually, the little difference between x-rays beamed at patients in hospitals and the mix of x-rays and gamma radiation produced by a nuclear explosion. Moreover, it is not only can cause cancers, but is also can cause hair loss problems. It makes people unconfident. Seriously, it can cause communication obstacle among people. So, hospital organization should educate doctors that medicare’ s purpose is to serve people for health, not to earn much money. If necessary, doctors should try to use the equipments with lower radiation.       
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References
Medicare Claims Show Overuse for CT Scanning. (2011, Jun, 17). The New York Times. Retreived June 21, 2011 from http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/18/health/18radiation.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&sq=CT scan&st=cse&scp=1

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