CT vs Breast cancer risk

[country76]

I need to have another CT and am worried about radiation exposure to my breasts.

My mom had breast cancer at 85 and lived cancer-free to the ripe age of 96 cancer-free. However, she didn't have another cancer.

[cajunjeff]

The increased risk of cancer from radiation associated with a ct scan in an adult is slight, but a risk nevertheless.

That risk has to be balanced with the benefit of the information obtained by the scan. So I would a conversation with my doctor as to why I need a scan and how important is that information.

If you are on ibrutinib and doing well with your labs, I am not sure what the purpose of the scan would be. I assume it would be to look to see how your nodes look, but if you don’t have any palpable nodes, I don’t know why that info would be that important.

I have been on ibrutinib two years and have not had a scan since starting. My doctor can no longer feel my spleen so we know it shrunk, as have my other nodes on physical exam.

So has your doctor told you why you need a scan? It might be for an important reason to justify the slight radiation risk. Or your doctor may decide based on your concerns, the scan isn’t absolutely necessary. It can’t hurt to ask, I would assume it’s not just purely a routine monitoring thing. To my understanding, we don’t need ct scans just to do periodic monitoring absent some particular reason.

[country76 in reply to cajunjeff]

There was a microscopic spot on my f/u scan after legionaires disease. The concern is left over from legionaires vs lung cancer. The scan is neccessary however I read somewhere that there was another type of CT scan that would take a picture without exposing the breast. I thought maybe someone else had heard about it.

Thanks for your response I should have been more specific.