Study finds 10% of pediatric blood cancers may stem from medical imaging radiation; Thai doctors urge dose optimization
A sweeping new study from the United States and Canada suggests that radiation from medical imaging could be linked to about one in ten blood cancers diagnosed in children and adolescents, raising alarms about how often imaging tests are used and how much radiation they deliver. The researchers analyzed imaging histories of nearly 3.7 million children born between 1996 and 2016 across six health systems in the U.S. and Ontario, Canada, and estimated that roughly 3,000 cancers in this age group may be attributable to ionizing radiation from imaging such as CT scans and X-rays. The central finding is a clear dose-response relationship: the more radiation exposure a child receives over time, the higher the risk of developing a hematologic malignancy, including leukemia and lymphoma.