Comparing 1,433 meningioma patients with 1,350 similar controls, researchers found people who had annual dental x-rays were twice as likely to be diagnosed with the usually non-malignant tumor. Elizabeth Claus says moderating exposure to the imaging may benefit some patients.
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Drug
Radiotherapy for Hodgkin lymphoma can cause breast cancer
Women given chest wall radiation for Hodgkin lymphoma ran a 25 percent higher risk of later breast cancer over a decade of follow-up. Among women carrying the FGFR2-related variant rs12119648, those treated with radiation plus chemotherapy were 59 percent more likely to develop breast cancer.
Drug
Cancer screening causes cancer
Medical imaging is the largest man-made radiation source for the UK population, where CT scans doubled to 3.4 million a year and the mean dose per person rose 23% between 1997 and 2008. The author argues that proposals to screen healthy people with CT raise legitimate cancer-risk concerns.
Drug
Cancer News: Brain diseases, zinc deficiency, mammography, radiation and cancer
A roundup: a Harvard review finds Parkinson's and Alzheimer's have been linked to reduced cancer risk through shared biological pathways, and an Oncogene study reports rats given 21 weeks of zinc deficiency plus low-dose NMBA had a 66.7 percent chance of esophageal carcinoma.
Environment
Radiation from Cell Phones and WiFi Are Making People Sick -- Are You at Risk?
Mercola argues that cell phones, Wi-Fi and cordless devices leave everyone exposed to microwave radiation, and cites estimates that 3 to 8 percent of people in developed countries have serious electrohypersensitivity symptoms while 35 percent have mild ones.
Supplements
Probiotic protects intestine from radiation injury (PR)
Washington University researchers report in Gut that giving mice the probiotic Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG before radiation protected the lining of the small intestine, which they suggest may point to a way to spare cancer patients intestinal injury.
Drug
Radiation therapy boosts risk of pneumonia in breast cancer patients
Japanese doctors describe three breast cancer patients who developed organizing pneumonia after postoperative radiotherapy. On the basis of these cases they suggest tangential radiation plus adjuvant tamoxifen may be the cause, and note such cases have been increasing.
Drug
Chest radiation boosts death risk from heart disease
A study in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology found women who received chest radiation for breast cancer faced up to a 76% higher risk of dying from heart disease over 28 years than untreated women. Radiation's vascular damage is rarely publicized, the piece notes.
Environment
Tragically, Average Child in U.S. Gets Seven Radiation Scans
A large study found the average US child undergoes more than seven radiation scans by age 18, mostly X-rays; 42 percent had at least one procedure and 25 percent had two or more within three years. Dental X-rays were excluded. CT scans deliver far more radiation than X-rays.
Environment
Full body scanners at airport pose little death risk
Peter Rez of Arizona State calculates that airport x-ray body scanners may cause one cancer death per 20 million exposures, ten times the government's estimate but, by his comparison, smaller than the risk of dying in a plane accident or a terrorist attack.
Government
Are airport scanners safe for travelers?
Four UCSF scientists wrote the White House science adviser about cancer risk from airport x-ray scanners, and one called the FDA's reply deeply flawed. Columbia's David Brenner and Arizona State's Peter Rez each put the dose or risk at roughly 10 times the government's figure.
Environment
Ionizing radiation boosts cardiovascular disease death risk
Health Canada researchers followed 337,397 workers occupationally exposed to ionizing radiation and recorded 3,533 cardiovascular deaths between 1951 and 1995, with risk rising alongside cumulative dose. They caution that non-radiation risk factors went unadjusted.
Drug
Spiral CT cuts lung cancer death risk in heavy smokers
In an NCI-funded trial of more than 53,000 smokers aged 55 to 74, those screened with low-dose spiral CT were 20 percent less likely to die of lung cancer than those given chest x-rays, with 354 lung cancer deaths versus 442. All-cause mortality was 7 percent lower.
Healthcare
Heart procedures put patients at risk of radiation exposure
Reviewing claims from nearly a million patients aged 18 to 64, a Journal of the American College of Cardiology study found one in 10 had a radiation-based heart procedure over three years. More than 3,000 exceeded 20 millisieverts a year, the limit set for radiation workers.
Drug
Radiotherapy helps prostate cancer patients
In a Canadian trial of 1,200 men with prostate cancer severe enough to warrant hormone therapy, 74 percent of those given radiation alongside hormones were alive at seven years against 66 percent on hormones alone — an average gain of about six months.
Drug
PCP: Medical radiation ups breast cancer risk
The President's Cancer Panel's annual report calls medical radiation an important and controllable cause of breast cancer. The piece recounts John Gofman's calculation that repeated mammograms would leave roughly 5 to 8 women per 1,000 with radiation-induced breast cancer.
Miscellaneous
Airport body scanners safe
The TSA says both millimeter wave and X-ray backscatter airport scanners are safe, and radiology groups put one backscatter scan below 10 microrem, about two minutes of flying. The writer counters that X-rays are a recognized carcinogen with no safe threshold.
Drug
Some basics about radiation and cancer
A primer on radiation risk: ionizing radiation from X-rays and CT scans is a recognised carcinogen, damage accumulates over the years, and no dose is definitively safe, though exposure does not mean cancer will follow. One chest X-ray delivers 30 to 50 MREM, background about 300 a year.
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