IARC Project "Risk of Thyroid Cancer from Chernobyl"

• Research unit: SFOPH
• Project number: 06.001729

Key words (English)

Cancer

Short description (English)

Provide the best possible estimate of thyroid cancer risk following exposure to iodine isotopes and compare it to the risk following external photon radiation, so that all major lessons can be learned from Chernobyl about risk of thyroid cancer following radioiodine exposures.

Project aims (English)

The overall objective of the current project is to provide the best possible estimate of thyroid

cancer risk following exposure to iodine isotopes and compare it to the risk following external

photon radiation, so that all major lessons can be learned from Chernobyl about risk of thyroid

cancer following radioiodine exposures .

 

To fulfill this objective, the following operational aims must be achieved :

1) Characterisation and modelling of dosimetric uncertainties for subjects in IARC-led casecontrol

study ;

2) Assessment of thyroid cancer risk from iodine isotopes within the IARC coordinated thyroid

cancer case-control study taking into account the uncertainties in dosimetry .

Abstract (English)

Uncertainties in Individual Doses in a Case-Control Study of Thyroid Cancer after the Chernobyl Accident

A population-based case-control study of thyroid cancer among young people was carried out in the regions of Belarus and Russia that were most heavily contaminated by radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl accident. The study included 2,239 persons, both cases and controls, all aged 0-18 at the time of the accident in 1986. A single uniform method was developed, verified, and applied to all study subjects to reconstruct thyroid doses from intake of ¹³¹I via inhalation and ingestion. Although the process of dose reconstruction provides a deterministic (point) estimate of each subject’s dose, it is obvious that these dose calculations are also associated with uncertainties.

Transfer and application (German)

Beitrag zu unseren Kenntnissen über radiologische Risiken und Erfassung der Schilddrüsen Strahlendosen infolge Einnahmen verschiedener Radionuklide.