Can children undergo CT scans?

CT is a common examination. Many diseases need to be diagnosed by CT. We all know that CT is harmful to human health and has radiation. Therefore, for women who are preparing for pregnancy or pregnant, it is usually best not to do CT, and they need to stay away from it, otherwise it is easy to cause deformities in the baby. In daily life, can children do CT examinations?

Can children undergo CT scans?

If the child's disease requires a CT scan, it is best for him to sit, but under normal circumstances, excessive CT scans will not affect the child's health.

Does a CT scan for a child cause cancer?

Assuming that the human body is exposed to radiation, it takes the following process for a tumor to appear: first, the radiation causes DNA breaks in some cells. These damaged cells will undergo genetic repair, and most cells that fail the repair will end up with apoptosis. Gene mutations may occasionally occur, but the mutated cells will in most cases be eliminated by the immune system. After being irradiated once, it is indeed not easy for normal cells to go through layers of low-probability events and become immortal cells.

Three principles of CT scan

1. The principle of justification must ensure that the application of ionizing radiation does less harm to the public than benefit;

2. Optimization principle: any exposure should be kept at a reasonable minimum level to avoid unnecessary exposure;

3. The limiting principle ensures that the dose received by an individual does not exceed the prescribed dose limit, thereby minimizing the harm caused by radioactive examination to the examinee. Taking the screening and early detection of lung cancer as an example, low-dose, high-resolution CT can detect early lung cancer without symptoms, which provides more opportunities for surgical resection. The benefits of early detection brought by CT to people at high risk of lung cancer outweigh the harm of a single exposure. However, for patients with common pneumonia, it is not necessary to undergo repeated CT examinations in a short period of time. Chest X-rays and other methods can be used instead.

Although CT scans do have a certain amount of radiation, there is actually no need to worry about the question of "Will a CT scan on a child cause cancer?" This is because radiation needs to accumulate to a certain amount to cause a qualitative change. If a single CT scan can cause cancer, then how can the doctors who do CT scans be fine? Therefore, CT scans should still be done when necessary.