4.6 Article

Risk of thyroid cancer in Ukrainian cleanup workers following the Chornobyl accident

Journal

EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF EPIDEMIOLOGY
Volume 37, Issue 1, Pages 67-77

Publisher

SPRINGER
DOI: 10.1007/s10654-021-00822-9

Keywords

Radiation; Thyroid cancer; Chornobyl; Chernobyl; Ukraine; Liquidators; Cleanup workers

Funding

  1. Intramural Research Program, Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

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In this study, we aimed to investigate the association between thyroid radiation dose received during adulthood and thyroid cancer risk in men. The results showed that the overall thyroid cancer risk per gray (EOR/Gy) was 0.40, with a stronger association seen with less time since exposure. Additionally, a slightly elevated but nonsignificant association was observed for follicular thyroid cancer.
Although much is known about the radiation-related risk of thyroid cancer in those exposed at young ages, less is known about the risk due to adult exposure, particularly in men. We aimed to examine the association between thyroid radiation dose received during adulthood and thyroid cancer risk in men. We conducted a nested case-control study (149 cases; 458 controls) of male, Ukrainian cleanup workers who first worked in the Chornobyl zone between ages 18 and 59 years, with cases identified through linkage with the National Cancer Registry of Ukraine from 1988 to 2012. Individual thyroid doses due to external and internal exposure during the cleanup mission and during residence in contaminated settlements were estimated (total dose mean 199 mGy; range 0.15 mGy to 9.0 Gy). The excess odds ratio per gray (EOR/Gy) for overall thyroid cancer was 0.40 (95% CI: - 0.05, 1.48; p-value = 0.118). Time since exposure was borderline significant (p-value = 0.061) in modifying this association so that less time since exposure was associated with a stronger EOR/Gy. An elevated, but nonsignificant association was observed for follicular thyroid cancer (EOR/Gy = 1.72; 95% CI: - 0.25, 13.69; p-value = 0.155) based on a small number of cases (n = 24). Our findings for radiation-related overall thyroid cancer risk are consistent with evidence of increased risks observed in most of the other studies of adult exposure, though the magnitude of the effect in this study is lower than in the previous case-control study of Chornobyl cleanup workers.

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