From: Natural News
A surge in the use of CT scans in the last 25 years has led to millions of patients per year being unnecessarily exposed to dangerous radiation that increases their risk of cancer, according to a paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
“It has been estimated that about 0.4 percent of all cancers in the United States may be attributable to the radiation from CT studies,” the authors wrote. Because cancer can take a decade to appear, “this estimate might now be in the range of 1.5 to 2.0 percent” when adjusted for the current level of CT use.
A CT or CAT scan, which stands for computerized axial tomography, is a three-dimensional body scan acquired by means of an exceptionally high X-ray dose. CT scans have become popular because they provide more detail than normal X-ray scans. But according to co-author David Brenner, “The radiation dose from a CT scan is far larger than from a conventional X-ray. It’s 50 times to 100 times larger.”
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