Thyroid Cancer Risks Increased by Dental X-Rays

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Repeated exposure to dental x-ray radiation can prove bad for your oral health; at least that is what recent studies are suggesting.

In a recent study in the journal, Acta Oncologica, researchers have revealed an elevated risk of developing thyroid cancer in patients that have had repeated dental x-rays.

The thyroid is a gland that is extremely vulnerable to radiation carcinogenesis.

It has been found that x-ray workers, dental assistants, and even dentists have experienced elevated risks of developing salivary tumors, thyroid cancer, and meningiomas due to the repeated exposure to radiation through dental x-rays.

Two studies were conducted; one study involved over 300 patients.

The study was case controlled, based on the population, and the patients all had thyroid cancer.

The second study involved a similar number of patients that were control subjects.

The results of the study revealed that the age, nationality, gender, or education level of the patients did not matter but that a repeated exposure to radiation via dental x-rays was present in many of the patients.

Researchers are now concluding that radiation exposure via dental x-rays, especially if the exposure is repetitious, might somehow increase the likelihood that a patient develops thyroid cancer.

Further studies are still necessary in order to definitely declare dental x-ray radiation responsible for the onset of cancer in some patients, and researchers will need to turn to existing patient records of patients that have had dental x-rays in the past.

Further evaluation could strengthen the assertion that multiple dental x-rays are harmful and put patients at risk.