Common test responsible for 103K new cases of cancer in the United States annually

A shocking new study suggests that a routine diagnostic procedure made millions of times in the United States could cause more than 100,000 new cases of cancer annually, with almost 10,000 cases in children.

New research from the London Cancer Research Institute indicates that computed tomography explorations, which are used to select for a wide variety of problems, including cancer, could represent 5% of cancer cases in the United States.

This would place the risk causing TC cancer at the same level as alcohol.

The researchers said that their findings were not particularly relevant in the United Kingdom, which has one of the lowest rates of TC in the world developed due to its strict policy of allowing only the procedure when it is clinically necessary.

The US is a different story.

It is estimated that 93 million TCs were performed in the United States in 2023, up to 3 million in 1980.

The study co-author, Amy Berrington, leader of the ICR Clinical Cancer Epidemiology Group, and his team estimated that these TCs could cause 9,700 cases of cancer in American children.

As such, researchers emphasize the importance of avoiding unnecessary explorations and ensuring proper doses, especially since the risk is higher in younger patients.

“Although TCs are immensely beneficial in the diagnosis and detection of many conditions, including cancer, they involve exposure to ionizing radiation that has been shown to increase the risk of developing cancer,” Berrington said in a statement.

“It is important to keep in mind that for the individual patient, this increased risk is small and the benefits exceed the risks if the exploration is justified clinically. But when millions of TC explorations occur throughout the population, these small risks are added,” he said.

Researchers also advise medical professionals to be monitoring about possible risks and discourage healthy people to undergo complete body explorations offered by private clinics.

“We are instant with doctors to ensure that explorations are only performed when needed and that the doses are suitable for the patient,” Berrington said.

“In the United States, TC -related cancers could make up 5% of all cancers; some of these cancers could be avoided by avoiding unnecessary explorations and ensuring that correct doses be used.”

How much radiation does it get from a TC exploration?

Last month, researchers sounded the alarm that the radiation doses of TC explorations vary widely among clinics, with little supervision.

“Many patients still receive routine doses of radiation two or three times what they should do,” Dr. Rebecca Smith-Bindman, a professor at the University of California-San Francisco Medical School, told NBC. “We continue to do more and more CT, and the doses continue to increase.

“It is unfathomable,” he added.

Smith-Bindman noted that the dose of radiation a patient obtains from one machine could be 10 or 15 times more than another.

In 2009, she and other researchers estimated that radiation is to blame 2% of cancers.

Obtaining multiple TC has also been shown to increase the risk of cancer. In a 2009 study, scientists found that the risk of lifelong cancer for people undergoing a single TC exploration is only 0.7% of more than 45% of the general population, but with multiple explorations, and the odds of up to 2.7% more.

Another study determined that people undergoing a TC before 22 are significantly at risk of developing blood cancers, while TCs in the CAP repeated in childhood have been related to a greater risk of brain tumor.

The new rules implemented by the centers for Medicare and Medicaid services in January maintain more strict evaluations of the TC exploration doses, among other measures.