About 5 Percent of New Cancer Cases May Be Due to CT Scan Exposure

Objective: To estimate the possible lifetime risk for the development of cancer related to the use of CT imaging. Design: Multicenter sampling of CT scans performed between January 2018 and December 2020 using data from the University of California at San Francisco CT Dose Registry. Participants: 61,510,000 patients who underwent 93,000,000 CT scans in 2023 across 143 U.S. hospitals in 20 states. Methods: Lifetime risk of radiation-induced cancer was molded by age, gender, and type of CT using National Cancer Institute software programming based on National Research Council effects of ionizing radiation modeling. These data were used to project the scale of the problem to the U.S. population. Results: 95.8% of patients were adults (53% female and 47% male). An estimated 103,000 projected cancers induced by radiation were estimated to be secondary to these CT scans. Although children and teens had fewer CTs performed overall (only 4.2% of the total), their risk for developing subseque more...