Tuesday, 27 November 2012

Study: chest CT scans may increase breast cancer risk

Use of medical imaging has surged in the past decade, and now a new study suggests the trend carries a risk: Having multiple cardiac and chest CT scans may increase the chances of breast cancer, researchers report.

The risk appears higher for younger women, the preliminary research showed. For example, for a girl or young woman under age 23 who has two high-dose cardiac or chest CT scans, the risk of developing breast cancer in the next 10 years doubles, the researchers found. 

The study, scheduled for presentation Tuesday, November 27, 2012, at the Radiology Society of North America annual meeting in Chicago, included data on radiation exposure from the Group Health insurance database. The researchers reviewed CT scan-dose data on more than 1,600 females between 2000 and 2010, and used a statistical modeling technique to estimate the average radiation doses they received.

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