Answer to Question #3884 Submitted to "Ask the Experts"

I am 29 years old. I have had many x rays and CT scans. These are just the ones that I can remember . . . I have had two head CT scans, two chest CTs, two abdominal CTs plus a barium swallow procedure in which radiation was used, one-full body CT, and numerous chest and abdominal x rays. Most of these occurred within about a six-month time span about one year ago. I also had numerous chest and abdominal x rays when I was younger. I think that doctors did not communicate because I feel that some of these were done more than once. It turns out that there was nothing diagnosed. My chiropractor couldn't believe that they had done this to me. He would not even do the x rays on my back due to the excess that I had already received. I am petrified that I have done irreparable damage to my body. I am afraid that I will get cancer from the excessive amount of radiation. Please help!

It is not possible to provide any specific risk analysis for you, especially from the broad information you provided.  However, it is extremely unlikely that you will have any harmful effects from your medical radiation.  For example, the American Cancer Society data indicate that about 15% of Americans will get serious cancer.  The probability of cancer from any single medical x-ray exposure is on the order of one in a million.  So, if you are one of the unfortunate ones who get cancer, it will be many times more likely that it arose spontaneously, rather than being caused by your x-ray exposure.  We have no data proving that any patient has been harmed from ordinary diagnostic x-ray procedures in recent years.  Older data, generally before World War II, do indicate that some patients were injured—but equipment was much cruder then and patient doses were much larger. You should not be unduly concerned about your radiation exposure. In particular, you should not be denied the benefit of future x-ray examinations just because of your history.  If an x-ray exposure is deemed by your physician to be medically necessary, your benefit from it will be substantially greater than any potential risk.

S. Julian Gibbs, DDS, PhD