Calculating disability-adjusted life years (DALY) as a measure of excess cancer risk following radiation exposure

Abstract

This paper has proposed that disability-adjusted life year (DALY) can be used as a measure of radiation health risk. DALY is calculated as the sum of years of life lost (YLL) and years lived with disability (YLD). This multidimensional concept can be expressed as a risk index without a probability measure to avoid the misuse of the current radiation detriment at low doses. In this study, we calculated YLL and YLD using Japanese population data by gender. DALY for all cancers in Japan per 1 Gy per person was 0.84 year in men and 1.34 year in women. The DALY for all cancers in the Japanese baseline was 4.8 in men and 3.5 in women. When we calculated the ICRP detriment from the same data, DALYs for the cancer sites were similar to the radiation detriment in the cancer sites, excluding leukemia, breast and thyroid cancer. These results suggested that the ICRP detriment overestimate the weighting fraction of leukemia risk and underestimate the weighting fraction of breast and thyroid cancer. A big advantage over the ICRP detriment is that DALY can calculate the risk components for non-fatal diseases without the data of lethality. This study showed that DALY is a practical tool that can compare many types of diseases encountered in public health.

Maintenir les recommandations de la CIPR adaptées aux besoins

“…Elle permettrait des comparaisons plus directes avec d'autres agents cancérigènes. D'autres mesures du dommage sanitaire, telles que les années de vie perdues corrigées de l'incapacité (Disability-Adjusted Life Years, DALY) (Shimada et Kai, 2015;WHO, 2021), ont également été discutées, et leur utilisation comme mesure des dommages causés par les rayonnements devrait être étudiée.…”

Areas of research to support the system of radiological protection

“…Since these factors depend on the changes in lifestyle, advances in diagnostic technologies and cancer treatment, and status of health care system, they require periodical update (Breckow et al 2018 ; Breckow, 2020 ). Alternative approaches to calculating radiation-induced detriment and to adjusting for the severity should be explored and need further research (Shimada and Kai 2015 ). Potential impact of diseases of the circulatory system on radiation detriment …”

Size‐Specific Dose Estimates of Radiation Based on Body Weight and Body Mass Index for Chest and Abdomen‐Pelvic CTs

“…The increased risk of radiation-induced cancer from CT scans is a major concern for the medical community [1][2][3][4]. Compared with other radiologic imaging modalities, CT scanning is associated with a higher radiation dosage because of the scanner type, operation condition, scan protocol, and diagnostic reliability [2,5].…”