Currently some medical imaging facilities are promoting a modern use of computed tomography (CAT), also called computerized axial tomography (CAT) scan. This use is referred to as whole-body CT scanning or whole-body CT screening, and it is market as a preventive or proactive healthcare measure to fine individuals who have no symptoms or suspicion of disease. At this time the FDA know of no data demonstrating that whole-body CT screening is decisive in detecting any specific disease early satisfactory for the disease to be managed, treated, or cured and advantageously spare a being at least some of the detriment associated beside serious illness or premature passing. Any such presumed benefit of whole-body CT screening is currently uncertain, and such benefit may not be great plenty to offset the potential harms such screening could bring. Public health agencies and national medical societies-the American College of Radiology, the American College of Cardiology, the American Association of Physicists within Medicine, and the American Heart Association -do not recommend CT screening.
CT is a diagnostic imaging procedure that uses x rays to obtain cross-sectional similes of the body. Since its introduction and rapid adoption into medication in the mid-1970s, CT have become recognized as a dear medical tool for the diagnosis of disease, trauma, or abnormality and for planning, guiding, and monitoring therapy.
Important information in connection with whole-body CT screening:
* Such screening provides uncertain benefit near potential for some risk--The most likely outcomes of CT screening of a natural person near no symptoms of illness are:
1. Normal findings or
2. Suspicious findings requiring follow-up tests
Normal findings transport the possibility of inaccuracy and false reassurance. For suspicious findings, follow-up may involve simple, non-invasive testing. It may also involve invasive procedures associated near surgical risks of anesthesia, bleeding, infection, scarring, or it may entail more radiological exams, associated with radiation risk and the potential risk of allergic hostile response to injected contrast material. In any casing, it is unlikely that CT screening will benefit an individual lacking signs or symptoms of disease by detecting a serious disease rash enough to treat it and alter the outcome significantly.
* Radiation Dose--CT screening subjects the individual screen to radiation exposure from x rays. The dose a patient receive during a typical CT procedure is generally much larger than the radiation doses associated near most conventional x-ray imaging procedures. The principal risk associated with the radiation dose resulting to a individual from a CT procedure is the small possibility of developing a radiation-induced cancer some time later within that person's life span. For a patient near a medical need, the benefit of a diagnostic or cathartic CT procedure recommended by a physician normally far exceeds the small cancer risk associated near a CT procedure. For a person lacking symptoms, CT screening is unlikely to discover serious disease, and the potential harm to the individual may be greater than the presumed benefit.
* Scientific Studies--There are no notes demonstrating that whole-body CT screening of individuals without symptoms provides a greater probability of benefit than wound. Nor is there any solid study known to be going ahead to develop such data. Although nearby are several ongoing investigational studies of the effectiveness of using CT to eyeshade people, the studies are focused on high-risk groups for specific diseases (e.g., cigarette smokers for lung cancer). In such studies merely a limited portion of the body is irradiated, not the integral body, and only screening for a specific type of disease is individual evaluated, rather than screening for only anything that might be found anywhere in the body.
* No Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Approval of CT for Screening--Statements by CT imaging facilities that indicate. FDA "approval," "clearance," or "certification" of CT for screening procedures misrepresent the actual situation. FDA have never approved or cleared or certified any CT system specifically for use in screening (i.e., of individuals in need symptoms), because no manufacturer have ever demonstrated to the FDA that their CT scanner is effective for screening for any disease or condition.
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