Patients uninformed about potential harms of CT scans

Next time you see an ad promoting CT scans, look for any disclosure of potenial harms. Good luck finding any.

A study in this week's Archives of Internal Medicine (non-subscribers get free access only to an abstract), Medical Decision Making Regarding Computed Tomographic Radiation Dose and Associated Risk: The Patient’s Perspective, suggests that patients are inadequately informed about the potential risks of ionizing radiation form CT scans.

• 47% of patients believed that the decision to undergo CT imaging had been made entirely by their physician.

• Despite the amount of physician involvement in the decision to obtain a CT scan, patients knew little about ionizing radiation and the risks associated with medical imaging, which was demonstrated by the fact that only 6% of respondents knew that the radiation associated with CT increased the lifetime risk of cancer.