High radiation exposure among male radiologists has been reported to result in a significantly higher proportion of female offspring, as a study in the July 2007 issue of
Baylor University Medical Center Proceedings shows.
It has been documented that male physicians in some specialties are more likely to father girls than boys. A group of cardiologists[1], led by James W. Choi, M.D., who is on the medical staff at Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas, tested whether work-related radiation exposure affected the sex proportion of offspring of male interventional cardiologists. They found that, contrary to hypothesis, the 402 men in their study had slightly more male children than female children, mirroring the general national trend.
On behalf of the interventional committee of the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions, an Internet-based questionnaire was sent to the society's 2063 members. The 402 male respondents had a total of 518 biological offspring; 48.6 per cent of them were female. Among the 172 high-volume male diagnostic operators (those who performed >300 cases annually), there were 218 biological offspring, of whom 46.8 per cent were female. Among the 59 high-volume male interventional operators, there were 70 biological offspring, of whom 45.7 per cent were female. P values were nonsignificant for all three groups.
In conclusion, work-related radiation exposure of male invasive and interventional cardiologists was not associated with a statistically significant preponderance of female offspring.
[1] James W. Choi, MD, Praveen Mehrotra, MD, Lee A. MacDonald, MD, Lloyd W. Klein, MD, Norm M. Linsky, Anne M. Smith, and Mark J. Ricciardi, MD
