Public-health professionals and paediatric radiology teams have been warned to consider using paediatric CT scans more selectively, after researchers raised concerns that radiation may be responsible for an increase in childhood cancer.
Delegates at the first International Conference on Childhood Leukaemia, held by Children with Leukaemia, heard concerns that a single year of paediatric CT examinations could result in approximately 80 radiation-induced cancer deaths in the UK, most of which were likely to be from childhood leukaemia.
Radiation doses were much larger for paediatric than adult CT and children were much more sensitive to radiation-induced cancer than adults, said researchers from the National Cancer Institute in Maryland, USA.
However, they said the benefits of an appropriate CT scan almost always outweighed individual risks.
