What are the hazards of ct to the human body

If you go to the hospital for a check-up because you are sick, some doctors will choose to do various tests based on the condition of your illness. CT is a very important test item. Everyone is very worried that CT will cause a lot of harm to the human body. After all, it is a kind of radiation. For pregnant women, will it affect the development of the fetus? People know very little about CT in this aspect. The following is a comprehensive explanation of the harm of CT to the human body.

While we enjoy the convenience and accuracy brought by CT examinations, we must also always be vigilant against the increasing harm caused by CT radiation.

The harm of CT to the human body mainly comes from the ionizing radiation produced by X-rays. This ionizing radiation interacts with human cells, body fluids and other substances, causing the ionization of the atoms or molecules of the substances, and can directly destroy certain macromolecular structures in the body, break protein molecular chains, break ribonucleic acid or deoxyribonucleic acid, destroy some enzymes that are important for material metabolism, and even directly damage cell structures. Ionizing radiation can ionize water molecules that are widely present in the body, forming some free radicals, which can damage the body through the indirect effects of these free radicals.

There are two ways that ionizing radiation can cause damage to the human body:

One is the non-random occurrence of damage, which is mainly related to the dose and tissue sensitivity. The effects of radiation on the body's organs and tissues vary in degree, and can generally be divided into highly sensitive, moderately sensitive, slightly sensitive, and insensitive tissues.

Highly sensitive

Lymphoid tissue (lymphocytes and immature lymphocytes); gonads (spermatogonia, ova); embryonic tissue; thymus (thymocytes); bone marrow tissue (immature erythrocytes, granulocytes and megakaryocytes); gastrointestinal epithelium.

Moderately to slightly sensitive tissue

Sensory organs (cornea, lens, conjunctiva); endothelial cells (mainly blood vessels, sinusoids and lymphatic vessels)

Insensitive tissue

muscle, cartilage, connective tissue)

After radiation acts on the body, it causes changes at the molecular and cellular levels depending on the sensitivity of the irradiated tissue and the accumulated dose of radiation. The secondary effects produced eventually lead to disorders at the organ level and even varying degrees of changes at the overall level, resulting in signs and symptoms of radiation damage. For example, radiation-induced skin damage, large doses of ionizing radiation leading to hair loss and a decrease in white blood cells, damage to the eye lens (cataracts), and especially irradiation of radiation-sensitive endocrine organs may lead to endocrine dysfunction. Ionizing radiation has serious consequences for reproductive cell damage, while irradiation of the ovaries or testicles can affect the offspring of the exposed individual, causing malformations or even genetic effects. Severe overdose of radiation can also cause death.

The second is the random effect. Radiation damage to a single cell or a small number of cells (mainly chromosomal aberrations, gene mutations, etc.) can cause random effects and may induce malignant diseases such as cancer and leukemia.

In fact, CT still has harm to the human body, especially for pregnant women. However, with the improvement of medical technology, the ionizing radiation rate of CT has been significantly reduced, and many people feel that there is no harm in doing CT. We also need to look at CT dialectically. Although it has certain harms, the diagnostic effect is very accurate.