X-ray German doctors too often?

Increased radiation exposure due to too frequent X-rays? Around 2,000 people get cancer every year due to the related radiation technology.

(11.07.2010) Around 140 million a year are taken x-rays of patients. Only in Japan is geröngt even more often than in Germany. This puts Germany in second place. But X-rays expose the human body to radiation, which can also lead to cancer. "The inhibition threshold to use X-ray diagnostics is low," said radiologist Prof. Joachim Berkefeld from the University Hospital Frankfurt am Main opposite the magazine "Apotheken Umschau".

In medicine, the X-ray method is used to detect anomalies in the body that allow diagnosis in the context of symptoms, signs and possibly other examinations. This procedure is called X-ray diagnostics. Depending on the procedure and body region, tube voltages between 25-35 kV are used and in mammography about 38 and 120 kV. Every year, billions of X-rays are made using radiation technology worldwide.

Experts assume that 2,000 cancers in Germany alone will be triggered as a result of radiotherapy. Doctors increasingly want to protect themselves and often use the X-ray procedure unnecessarily. Therefore, Prof. Berkefeld advises that the necessity of X-ray images of competent physicians should always be carefully checked to avoid unnecessary exposures and thus unnecessary radiation exposure.

Not only the use of X-ray technology has increased, but also the use of computed tomography (CT). Also in this procedure, patients are exposed to high doses of radiation. The radiologist Christoph Heyer, who was working at Bochum University Hospital in early October, warned against the health dangers of the CT procedure in an interview with the "Stern". Heyer explained that referring physicians know too little about the radiation exposure. A study has shown that only 26 percent of paediatricians are aware of the association between radiation exposure and oesophageal tumors. Meanwhile, according to his statements in Germany, the proportion of radiation exposure by CT devices to be over 50%, but the CT examinations account for only 8 percent.

Time and again, experts point out that many CT examinations are unnecessary, because of internal organs and their changes also ultrasonic or magnetic resonance (MRI) examinations provide satisfactory diagnoses.
If you suspect a bone fracture, special tumors, lung diseases or other injuries are z.T. also x-ray examinations completely sufficient. (sb, tf)