What is the risk of developing cancer from having X-ray tests?
In the research published in The Lancet medical journal, the authors calculated that radiation from medical X-ray tests contributed approximately 14% of the annual exposure to radiation. The rest of a person's radiation exposure comes from other man-made sources and from the natural enviroment (known as background radiation).
The researchers calculated that the additional radiation exposure (from medical X-ray tests) would increase a UK person's cumulative risk of developing cancer by the age of 75 by 0.6%. This is equivalent to around 700 of the 124,000 new cases of cancer diagnosed in the UK every year.
