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A member asked:
Why does ionizing radiation cause cancer decades later and not immediately?
A doctor has provided 1 answer
Genomic instability: This is an over simplification, but ionizing radiation leads to lots of dna breaks. Normal cells will try to put things back together, but they aren't able to do it correctly 100% of the time. As a result, as cells divides dna gets lost or duplicated over time. This process can take years, and these changes eventually lead to cancer.
Answered 7/10/2015
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