Sharp rise in CT scans prompts call for new safeguards on radiation exposure

A group of experts has called for extra safeguards to protect people from radiation exposure, given a “dramatic” recent rise in the use of computed tomography (CT) scanning.

Hospitals in England carried out almost five million CT scans in 2012-13, compared with just over one million in 1996-97, the Committee on Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment said.1 The committee chair, Alex Elliot, said that the latest data for 2013-14 showed a further 13% rise in use this year and that it showed no sign of “plateauing.”

He said that CT scans made up a big proportion of the overall medical exposure to radiation in the United Kingdom, so their rising use was …