Which medical procedure gives you a higher dose of radiation ?

Question

My sister and I have accumulated a few MRIs, CAT scans and ultra sounds between us and we were wondering which gave you the higher dose of radiation ?

Deliberately stupid answers get reported.

Answer 1

MRI's and ultrasounds don't involve ionizing radiation. CT involves a lot more than plain x-rays.

Answer 2

Well an MRI uses a very large magnetic field and detects concentrations of single protons (ie: hydrogen nuclei) in your body, therefore you get no radiation from that.

An ultrasound uses only sound waves, they're very high pitched so you can't hear them. Again, no radiation there.

A CT scan takes a series of X-Rays of your body to build up a 3D picture. Definate radiation there, not enough to cause any harm, but not something you'd want to go and have done every day either.

So a CT scan is the highest dose of radiation, since the others don't give you any.

Answer 3

MRI ,ULTRASOUND    AREN'T IONIZING RADIATION

CT IS THE MAXIMUM RADIATION TEST

Answer 4

MRI uses a giant magnet and radio waves to make an image, it's a non ionizing(doesn't cause atoms to gain/lose electrons) form of radiation.

Ultrasound records reflected sound waves, which then produce an image on the screen.  Sound waves are another form of nonionizing radiation.

CAT scans or CT(same name, different acronym) uses x-rays.  It's just a predetermined plane of the body(slices) MRI does too, except they have different purposes.  It uses ionizing(changes neutral atoms to positive from losing electrons/negative from gaining electrons) radiation.

All in all, CT is going to give you radiation, MRI and Ultrasound won't give you any known radiation known to man.

So, to answer your question directly, CAT scans will give you the most radiation.

However, to lessen any worries, technology has advanced to where we use only 1% of the x-rays that we used to use, thanks to the technology of intensifying screens.  Instead of using alot of xrays to make an image, we use enough to get through the body and to the film, the crystals from the intensifying screen illuminate and glow onto the film, which then makes the image.  It'll have to be processed and all that good stuff, but nothing you have to worry about.  :-P

Hope that didn't just answer your quesiton, but reassured you that the technology we have today is much safer than when Mr. Rontgen first discovered the radiologic technology.