MRI's, CT's whats the long term effects?

Sherry, hi!

CT scans are heavy on the radiation, so you want to make sure they're absolutely necessary before you agree to them. Asking questions about what your doctor hopes to discover from the CT scan will give you a better idea of its worth. MRIs don't pose a radiation risk, but they're wildly expensive so, again, there needs to be a good reason, and you deserve a full explanation of what it is.

Neither CT scans nor MRIs are necessary for diagnosis of lymphedema, but they may be important for ruling out other causes of swelling, such as a new tumor. A doppler may also be used to rule out a blood clot, which could be another cause of swelling. 

Once other possibilities are ruled out the next step would be a referral to a well-qualified lymphedema therapist. S/he will be able to diagnose lymphedema by medical history and simple physical exam. Here's a page with information about how to find a well-trained lymphedema therapist near you:

http://www.stepup-speakout.org/Finding_a_Qualified_Lymphedema_Therapist.htm

If you'd like to talk with other women dealing with lymphedema, do hop on over to the "Lymphedema After Surgery" board -- there are lots of welcoming women there who are happy to answer questions.

Be well,
Binney

 I agree with Binney, of course, about the MRIs as there's no radiation.

I was concerned about this too since I have had 2 CTs this year (for a non-breast cancer related condition).  I think it was a HCCT  (of chest)  (may have initials wrong)???

This paper opines it is not a trivial task to estimate the radiation dose to the patient for  at least some CTs. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18066555

I am not an expert on this, by any means, but I did find this study where they looked at people from the ER  over 7.7 years who had gotten at least  3 CTs in the ER to see their radiation risk.   They found 130 patients who had a mean of 13 and max of 70 CTs, with (using assumptions) an attributable lifetime cancer additional risk of 1 in 82 (for the mean) and 1 in 17 (for the max of 70 CTs.) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19304691

In another study"In 2005 3,769 patients obtained 11,216 CT examinations. They were generally older with a mean age of 56.9 years (0-97). The most frequent referring speciality was oncology followed by chest medicine and abdominal surgery. In 2005 the total effective dose was 71,043 mSv (mean 18.9 mSv/per patient). According to the BEIR VII model this radiation level corresponded to a risk for inducing a cancer in 7 patients, being fatal in half of them."http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18923941

In  this study, I don't understand it all, but I think it shows there are different radiation exposures for different CT machines. If I'm reading this right, it looked like the highest risk scans were about 1:1000. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17919637

I'm sure there are a lot of things we don't know about risk, and a lot of assumptions made. My specialist wanted the CTs, and my GP ordered them, but wanted me to know the radiation risks.  I was fearing the risk was higher than these (ball park) numbers.

Thanks for that article, Leaf. I, too, am very concerned about the way in which we are subjected to diagnostic radiation as if we were lumps of dead meat. When I objected to another scan on the basis of the level of mSv to which I had already been exposed this year, I was told "but you already have cancer!"

Taking into account flying hours, background radiation, dental X-rays, sun exposure and mammograms, most of us would be exposed to about 5 mSv annually, so if 18.9 mSv induces cancer then 2 CT scans on top of this would take our annual radiation dose to about 35 mSv (4 CT scans a year, 51 mSv).

And they wonder why so many of us have a recurrence?

7    mSv PET scan
2.20 mSv average annual background radiation
0.02 mSv for a chest x-ray, up to
8    mSv for a CT scan of the chest
4-9  mSv per year aircrew member