The American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) is cautioning patients not to forego essential medical imaging tests due to speculation about the risks of radiation exposure.
Noting that risks with imaging and any medical procedure must be balanced with their benefits, AAPM said in a statement that it's concerned that "alarmist and sensational speculation about the risk of low-dose radiation exposure may cause patients to refuse these life-saving medical tests."
"Risks of medical imaging at effective doses below 50 mSv for single procedures or 100 mSv for multiple procedures over short time periods are too low to be detectable and may be nonexistent," AAPM said. "Predictions of hypothetical cancer incidence and deaths in patient populations exposed to such low doses are highly speculative and should be discouraged. These predictions are harmful because they lead to sensationalistic articles in the public media that cause some patients and parents to refuse medical imaging procedures, placing them at substantial risk by not receiving the clinical benefits of the prescribed procedures."
The full statement can be found here.
