Two studies have discovered that CT Scans containing higher radiation doses than thought.

Researchers have become concerned over CT Scans and the radiation that they expose the patients to may contain high levels of cancer causing radiation.

Information on a study done by four San Francisco hospitals found a median doses that ranged from 2mSV for a regular head scan up to 31 mSv for a abdomen and pelvis scan according to the University of California San Francisco researchers.

Medical tests that contain radiation are measured by units that are called millisieverts or mSv. A single mSv has an equivalent to an estimated dose of radiation that an average American absorbs in one year.

A radiation dose of 10 mSv have been discovered to be linked to an increased cancer risk amongst several survivors of the Nagasaki and Hiroshima atomic bomb blasts, researchers reported in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

Investigators are stating that this is a very important issue, because in the past two decades CT Scans have rocketed in numbers nationwide from 1980 doing 3 million CT scans a year to 2007 70 million scans.

The latest study that was done showed that the exposure was various within and between hospitals. A 13 fold difference was between the lowest and highest does in each study type. Researchers wrote “highlighting the need for greater standardization across institutions.”

Robert Smith the director of cancer screening for American Cancer Society, urged to use caution when reading the results of the studies. “As striking as these numbers are, we need to address this issue with common sense. They remind us that the potential benefits of a CT scan have to outweigh the possibilities of harm.”