Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2009 Dec 14;169(22):2071-7.
doi: 10.1001/archinternmed.2009.440.

Projected cancer risks from computed tomographic scans performed in the United States in 2007

Amy Berrington de González  1 , Mahadevappa Mahesh, Kwang-Pyo Kim, Mythreyi Bhargavan, Rebecca Lewis, Fred Mettler, Charles Land
Affiliations

Projected cancer risks from computed tomographic scans performed in the United States in 2007

Amy Berrington de González et al. Arch Intern Med. .

Abstract

Background: The use of computed tomographic (CT) scans in the United States (US) has increased more than 3-fold since 1993 to approximately 70 million scans annually. Despite the great medical benefits, there is concern about the potential radiation-related cancer risk. We conducted detailed estimates of the future cancer risks from current CT scan use in the US according to age, sex, and scan type.

Methods: Risk models based on the National Research Council's "Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation" report and organ-specific radiation doses derived from a national survey were used to estimate age-specific cancer risks for each scan type. These models were combined with age- and sex-specific scan frequencies for the US in 2007 obtained from survey and insurance claims data. We estimated the mean number of radiation-related incident cancers with 95% uncertainty limits (UL) using Monte Carlo simulations.

Results: Overall, we estimated that approximately 29 000 (95% UL, 15 000-45 000) future cancers could be related to CT scans performed in the US in 2007. The largest contributions were from scans of the abdomen and pelvis (n = 14 000) (95% UL, 6900-25 000), chest (n = 4100) (95% UL, 1900-8100), and head (n = 4000) (95% UL, 1100-8700), as well as from chest CT angiography (n = 2700) (95% UL, 1300-5000). One-third of the projected cancers were due to scans performed at the ages of 35 to 54 years compared with 15% due to scans performed at ages younger than 18 years, and 66% were in females.

Conclusions: These detailed estimates highlight several areas of CT scan use that make large contributions to the total cancer risk, including several scan types and age groups with a high frequency of use or scans involving relatively high doses, in which risk-reduction efforts may be warranted.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Estimated number of computed tomographic (CT) scans performed in the United States in 2007 (after exclusions), according to sex and age at exposure. The number of CT scans were estimated using the survey data for total number of scans of each type. *The age distribution of CT scans comes from the national commercial insurance database, excluding CT scans that had a diagnosis code of cancer or that were performed in the last 5 years of life.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Projected number of future cancers (mean and 95% uncertainty limits) that could be related to computed tomographic scan use in the United States in 2007, according to age at exposure.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment in

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Mettler FA, Jr, Thomadsen BR, Bhargavan M, et al. Medical radiation exposure in the U.S. in 2006: preliminary results. Health Phys. 2008;95(5):502–507. - PubMed
    1. Land CE. Estimating cancer risks from low doses of ionizing radiation. Science. 1980;209(4462):1197–1203. - PubMed
    1. Berrington de González A, Darby S. Risk of cancer from diagnostic X-rays: estimates for the UK and 14 other countries. Lancet. 2004;363(9406):345–351. - PubMed
    1. Shrimpton PC, Hart D, Hillier MC, Wall BF, Faulkner K. Survey of CT Practice in the UK, I: Aspects of Examination Frequency and Quality Assurance. HMSO; London, England: 1991.
    1. Brenner DJ, Hall EJ. Computed tomography—an increasing source of radiation exposure. N Engl J Med. 2007;357(22):2277–2284. - PubMed

Publication types