Large Study Finds CT Increases Cancer Risk for Young Patients

A recent large-scale study in Australia found that people who received CT scans in childhood or adolescence have a 24% greater risk of cancer than those who were never exposed to CT.

Mathews et al. searched the Australian Medicare system database for records of patients who were 0 to 19 years old on January 1, 1985, or who were born between January 1, 1985, and December 31, 2005; the search identified over 10.9 million patients. Of these, researchers found 680,211 records of patients who underwent a diagnostic CT scan during that time...