Discussion about this post

User's avatar
qatman's avatar

I work with this data regularly (in fact am probably a coauthor on at least one of the cited publications). For the vast majority of people who do not have specific contraindications, an occasional diagnostic scan adds imperceptible cancer risk. The data are extremely noisy and the amount of radiation is very small.

That said, older radiation exposures (say before 1960) were much more likely to be unshielded and cause extremely high doses, which *did* have a measurable effect.

Also just wanted to say that I really enjoy your writing and think that you should have a wider audience.

Expand full comment
tigrennatenn's avatar

Your table doesn't match the calculation in the text -- you said that it was 1.16 hours per mSv, but the table lists coronary angiogram as 1 mSv but 4 hours of life expectancy cost. What's the deal?

(Especially curious since I once had a very long heart-related fluoroscopy procedure.)

Expand full comment
14 more comments...

No posts