Cancer, Radiation
What to Know About the Mammography Debate
At what age should women’s breasts receive radiation to detect breast cancer? In Canada, some provinces are lowering the age of eligibility from 50 to 40, even before a task force releases an update on breast cancer screening guidelines. The current guidelines do not recommend routine screening for women in their 40s. In the U.S., a separate task force urges women ages 40 to 49 to get this procedure every two years. Why the conflicting advice? Mammography has been swirling in confusion for decades. In the past, some experts were adamant there was no evidence regular mammograms decreased the risk of breast cancer. Others, equally qualified authorities, were concerned that repeated exposures of breast tissues to radiation could cause breast malignancies. A...Read More
Alternate Treatments, Philosophy, Radiation
Let the Buyer Beware of Needless Radiation
There’s a Gifford-Jones Law that says, “Never accept radiation you don’t need.” But a dangerous new medical trend is breaking this law. What’s the worry? Across North America, some private clinics are now promoting the promise of early detection of disease to healthy people. In return for a fee, buyers get whole-body screening using a variety of diagnostic imaging equipment. These promoters don’t have to be marketing stars. People naturally fret about their mortality and become receptive listeners. It’s wrong to profit on those fears. But the trend is catching hold. The sell is easy when the hope is early detection of a small cancer. “You may not have any symptoms as yet,” they’ll pitch, “and an early catch means high likelihood...Read More
Cancer, Radiation
Did Radiation Protect President Carter from Pancreatic Cancer?
What do former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and Gifford-Jones have in common? They were both born the same year and have remarkable staying power! But Carter has lived under the shadow of pancreatic cancer all his life. His father, brother, and two sisters died of this disease and his mother also suffered from it. Carter has also lived through metastatic melanoma, a skin cancer that had spread to his liver and brain. How did he do it? Rod Adams, an atomic energy expert, has said that moderate radiation exposure may have helped to protect the former president from developing pancreatic cancer. During the nuclear meltdown at Chalk River in 1952, Carter was a naval officer working on the secret nuclear program. He...Read More
Dental, Pediatrics, Radiation
How Necessary Are Dental X-Rays?
What should you do the next time the dentist tells you he or she is going to take full dental X-rays? A new study shows that just as porcupines make love very, very carefully, you should also take care to limit the amount of radiation exposure during your lifetime, particularly the amount children receive. Dr. Elizabeth Claus of Yale University reports in the American Cancer Society Journal Cancer, that there's a link between dental x-rays and the risk of developing a brain tumour called a meningioma. These tumours grow from the meninges, the layers of tissue that cover the brain. Fortunately, most meningiomas are benign. Others are slow growing, but they can become life-threatening when they become as large as a baseball...Read More
Radiation
Can Radiated Patients Spread Radiation to Others?
How careful do patients have to be following nuclear diagnostic tests, or after radiation for the treatment of cancer? How long do these nuclear materials remain in the body? And how long will this radiation remain detectable and transmissible to others around you? A report from Johns Hopkins University says that patients following radiation must be made aware that they can pass along radiation to others. But, unlike cholesterol, this subject is rarely, if ever, discussed at the dinner table. The problem is that nuclear diagnostic tests are not going to go away or decrease. Rather, unless we develop other means of diagnosis, these tests will increase in the years ahead. During scans to detect thyroid disease, coronary troubles and cancer, radioactive...Read More
Radiation
Use Radiation Like Porcupines Make Love, Very Carefully
It's said that elephants never forget. Neither does radiation. The human body has a natural computer that tabulates every bit of radiation to which it is exposed during a lifetime. Radiation has great benefits in diagnosing disease when used wisely, but potentially harmful when used carelessly. So how much risk is there of developing a radiation-induced cancer? A report in Consumer Health says that 60 million computerized tomography (CT) scans were performed in 2007 in the U.S. This compares with 30 million 10 years ago. And according to Dr. David Brenner, Director of the Center for Radiological Research at Columbia University Medical Center in New York, one-third of these tests may not have been necessary. Remember there are radiation tests and there...Read More
Cancer, Radiation
Mammography – “I’m Sorry I Don’t Know How Much Radiation Is Given”
I have previously reported on a study conducted by Peter Gotzsche, a leading Danish researcher. His study claimed there's no convincing evidence that annual mammograms decrease the risk of dying from breast cancer. But can repeated exposure to radiation cause breast cancer? Three decades ago I reported a shocking discovery. Some x-ray machines were exposing patients up to 60 X the amount of radiation necessary for some procedures. X-ray equipment was often old, others rarely calculated for radiation exposure, and some technologists were incompetent. This column did not win me friends. But it resulted in a crack down by the government. However, regulation of equipment still didn't teach radiologists enough to know you don't mess around with nuclear engineers. A few years...Read More
