More Evidence That Low-Dose Ionizing Radiation Is Associated with Increased Cancer

Concerns about the carcinogenic effects of radiation are largely based on data from atomic bomb survivors, and the effects of ionizing radiation used for medical imaging are less well studied. To test for an association between low-dose ionizing radiation and subsequent cancer development in children, researchers queried the national healthcare database of South Korea from 2006 to 2015. To count as an exposure, diagnostic radiation had to have occurred two years before any cancer diagnosis.

Of roughly 12 million patients aged 0 to 19 years, 1.3 million (10.6%) received low-dose diagnostic radiation, mostly computed tomography (CT) scans, and 14% of exposed patients underwent multiple scans. New cancers were diagnosed in 22,000 patients (0.02…