A third of X-rays may be unnecessary, UN expert says

Aug 17, 2010, 15:32 GMT

Vienna - Nearly a third of X-rays and other radiological tests performed in the developed world are unnecessary, a United Nations expert said Tuesday in Vienna.

The UN Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) has published data showing that in the decade leading up to 2007, some 3.6 billion medical scans were performed worldwide each year - a 40 per cent rise on the previous 10 years.

According to committee member Fred Mettler, the overall health benefit of an increase in diagnoses outweighs the increased cancer risk caused by such procedures.

But the UN expert noted, 'I don't think there is any question that there's always room for reducing studies that are unnecessary, and even studies that are necessary often can be done with lower doses.'

Asked to quantify how many radiological tests that are currently carried in the developed world out might in fact be unnecessary, Mettler said: 'In some of the papers that the United States has looked at for health-care plans, it runs at around 30 per cent.'

Researchers at the University of California in San Francisco have reviewed more than 1,000 patients and found that radiation doses from computed tomography (CT) scans were much higher than commonly reported. Patients also often received wildly varying doses for the same type of scans, the researchers found.

Mettler said a number of international initiatives aimed at addressing the problem were underway.

People's exposure to medical radiation in the United States and in other rich countries at times exceeds normal levels present in nature, the UNSCEAR report said.