MORE CAUTION ABOUT TESTS

A CT scan is a terrific medical tool - just note its benefits for people with lung cancer ( A LIFESAVING TEST FOR LUNG CANCER is one the list ) - but there's now a long overdue fot its potential dangers. "A remarkable series of studies showed that CT scan are responsible for a huge number of cancers every year," says Robert Wachter, MD, a patient safety expert and chief of hospital medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. What's "huge"?

More than one in 300 women and one in 600 men who undergo a single cardiac CT scan will develop cancer because of the radiation exposure, one study showed.
Radiologists say, you should keep a record of your X-rays, CT scan, and other radiation tests and alert your doctors if you think they're requesting a test you've already had.