Dental X-rays may help dentists collect essential information about oral health, but a new study is raising questions about their safety.
The new research links regular dental imaging to one of the most common types of brain tumors and suggests adults who were regularly exposed to X-rays in the past, before dosages were lowered, might have an especially pronounced risk.
For the new study, scheduled to be published online on Tuesday in the the American Cancer Society's journal Cancer, researchers examined data from more than 1,400 patients who had been diagnosed with meningioma: This is a type of tumor that grows in membranes surrounding the brain and spinal cord and generally is noncancerous, but can lead to headaches, vision and memory problems and loss of speech and motor control. The researchers compared those individuals to more than 1,300 adults who were tumor-free.
Adults who developed brain tumors were more than twice as likely to say that they had bitewing X-rays yearly, if not more frequently, according to the findings. Bitewing X-rays, which require patients to bite down on an X-ray film holder, show the crowns of the upper and lower teeth at the same time.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/10/dental-x-rays-brain-tumor_n_1413158.html
-----signature-----
Chicago Bulls: 43-13
post game gem from Joakim Noah: "We cannot play with our heads down and have a poo poo face. Sometimes we have a poo poo face."
post game gem from Joakim Noah: "We cannot play with our heads down and have a poo poo face. Sometimes we have a poo poo face."
