CT scans to be avoided; might lead to cancer

CT scans to be avoided; might lead to cancer

COVID patients are tremendously using CT scans. These patients have developed a habit of getting scanned the moment they know about their positive reports, according to BusinessToday. This practice is doing more harm than good. It exposes patients to harmful radiation. Thus, the misuse of this medical biomarker requires to stop. Dr. Randeep Guleria of AIIMS (All India Institute of Medical Sciences) has already spoken about this and has warned people against such uses of scans.

The reason behind such damage

While CT scans help show any internal damages and help to improve health conditions by proper diagnosis, they do a lot of harm. A single CT scan can be compared to 300-400 x-rays running together; that is too much of these harmful rays. Such radiations increase the risks of cancer and should be used only when needed. A person with a proper oxygen saturation level might not need a CT scan. So doctors and healthcare professionals should consider the matter and give CT scans only on need and not on-demand or fear of patients. The biomarkers used in disease detection come with many side effects, so in the urge of getting healed from one disease, let us not welcome another even deadlier disease.

Further advice by Dr. Guleria:

Dr. Guleria also said that the increase in such tests is also the root cause of the panic rise. The CT scans show Patches for all COVID cases, and these patches go away on their own without needing any treatment, but these create a lot of panic for no reason. So, the patients with a deteriorating health condition after getting COVID positive or other diseases requiring urgent action should use the scans. Other than this, the blood tests: CPC or LDH, are very likely to show a few different results for a COVID patient, which might not be taken under consideration unless the situation and the report worsen. So, in the case of asymptomatic patients or patients with a mild infection, such tests only result in panic without being of any actual use.

So, in such a situation where the hospital beds are overloaded, let us not panic to do things that are not required and give us a chance to those who need them to get it in time.

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About Camelia Bhattacharyya 205 Articles
Camelia is an intern for PanAsiaBiz studying at the Amity University, Kolkata [B. Tech (biotechnology)]. She is fond of writing on Science, Health, and Biotechnology topics.