The Matka of Radiation from CT Scans

There was quite a brouhaha earlier this week when a senior doctor on television said that the radiation from one CT scan equals that from 300 chest X-rays - he said this in the context of the fact that many CT scans of the chest done for Covid-19 in India are perhaps not required, something that I have also spoken about in The Matka of “Doing Something” Medicine and The Matka of Covid-19 Treatment. His statement however led to a lot of anguish among non-doctors, doctors, and radiologists who perform these CT scans (I am one) and many also issued statements on social media about how wrong the calculations were and that the radiation from a CT scan of the chest is equivalent to only 100 chest X-rays or 50 or less or more.

But that’s missing the point.

The only question that matters is…

Does exposure to radiation from X-rays or CT scans or mammograms cause cancer?

Let’s start with the answer right away. “No”.

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