Scanners could cause 5% of cancers in the United States

The scanners could be responsible, in the United States, for 100,000 cancers per year, or 5% of cases diagnosed in the country, according to a calculation published Monday by American researchers in the journal Jama Internal Medicine. “The computed tomography (or scanner) saves lives, but its potential harmful effects are often neglected”alert scientists from the University of California, in San Francisco, pointing “Massive recourse” to this imagery process in the United States. 93 million exams were carried out in 2023 in 62 million patients, including 4% of children. Indispensable, the scanner delivers detailed images from the interior of the human body in three dimensions, and allows the diagnosis of many pathologies, at the price of doses of X -ray higher than during a simple radiography. Its use has increased by 30% in twenty years, resulting in exposure of an increased number of people to ionizing radiation of medical origin.

The estimate must however …