Ilana B Richman, Mitchell H Katz
JAMA Intern Med . 2025 Apr 14. doi: 10.1001/jamainternmed.2025.0514. Online ahead of print.
In this issue of JAMA Internal Medicine, Smith-Bindman et al1 report on the projected number of cancers expected to result from exposure to ionizing radiation during computed tomography (CT) scans performed in the United States in 2023. They estimated that approximately 93 million scans were performed in approximately 62 million patients, which could eventually result in 103 000 new cancers. Although there is some uncertainty around these estimates, the findings suggest that CT scans are likely an important cause of cancer in the United States and could be responsible for as many as 5% of incident cancers annually. These estimates put CT scanning on par with other well-known risk factors for cancer, including alcohol and obesity.