Radiation-induced cancer is a big fear as the use of CT scans for all kinds of medical diagnoses increases. Clearly, unnecessary radiation should be avoided. But a new study suggests that the cancer risk may have been overestimated.
Researchers from Stanford analyzed 10 million records from Medicare claims from 1998 to 2005 to determine the radiation exposure from CT scans and the cancer risk among this population. They found that radiation exposure doubled from 1998 to 2001 compared with 2002 to 2005 as CT use became more common.
