CT scans may raise cancer risk

NEW YORK, Nov. 30 (UPI) -- Researchers said U.S. doctors are putting patients at risk of cancer by exposing them to radiation from unnecessary diagnostic CT scans.

The report, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, said that in the coming decades up to 2 percent of all cancers in the United States may be caused by radiation from computed tomography -- CT -- scans performed, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.

Columbia University researchers said children face the most danger, with an estimated 4 million to 5 million scans ordered for children each year. They found that CT scans can emit radiation levels comparable to that received by some people miles from the epicenters of the 1945 atomic blasts over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan.

The researchers are recommending that doctors try alternative diagnostic techniques and that patients question if the scans are necessary, the newspaper said.