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Can CT Scans Bump Up Your Cancer Risk?

Radiation doses from CT scans are often high and vary widely, and excessively high doses may contribute substantially to future cancers, a study shows.

CT scans are noninvasive medical tests that combine special X-ray equipment and computers to produce detailed cross sectional images of the body. The number of CT scans performed has exploded over the last three decades, growing from about 3 million yearly in 1980 to about 70 million in 2007.

The new study is published in the Archives of Internal Medicine. Study researcher Rebecca Smith-Bindman, MD, of the University of California San Francisco, says the idea for the research began "when I was looking at some individual scans; I was surprised at how high the radiation dose was. I thought it was time to start looking."

The new research comes in the wake of the discovery earlier this year that more than 200 stroke patients at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles had received more than eight times the necessary radiation dose when undergoing CT scans. That, in turn, prompted the FDA to encourage CT facility personnel to review their protocols and be sure the values displayed on the control panel jibe with doses normally associated with the scan being performed.

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