Cancer incidence in children and young adults did not increase relative to parental exposure to atomic bombs

Abstract

We have examined whether parental exposure to atomic bomb radiation has led to increased cancer risks among the offspring. We studied 40 487 subjects born from May 1946 through December 1984 who were cancer-free in January 1958. One or both parents were in Hiroshima or Nagasaki at the time of the bombing and for childbirth. Using population-based tumor registry data we analyzed cancer incidence data from 1958 to 1997 by Cox regression models, and we examined the effects of both paternal and maternal irradiation with adjustment for city, sex, birth year, and migration. During follow-up, 575 solid tumor cases and 68 hematopoietic tumor cases were diagnosed. Median age at diagnosis was 39.7 years. Median doses were 143 millisierverts for 15 992 exposed (5 þ millisierverts or unknown dose) fathers and 133 millisierverts for 10 066 exposed mothers. Cancer incidence was no higher for subjects with exposed parents than for the reference subjects (0 -4 millisierverts), nor did the incidence rates increase with increasing dose. For 3568 subjects with two exposed parents, the adjusted risk ratio for all cancer was 0.97 (95% confidence interval 0.70 -1.36). Because of the small number of cases, however, we cannot exclude an increase in cancer incidence at this time.

Therapeutic Administration of 131I for Differentiated Thyroid Cancer: Radiation Dose to Ovaries and Outcome of Pregnancies

“…These results are consistent with those observed for the offspring of female Japanese atomic bomb survivors: 1,281 deaths, 278 of which were from cancer (25). Similar results were observed for cancer incidence in the offspring of female Japanese atomic bomb survivors in a study including 709 cancers (26).…”

New germline mutations in the hypervariable minisatellite CEB1 in the parents of children with leukaemia

“…Moreover, fathers' radiation exposure was considered to be insufficient to cause the mutation rate required for the number of cases observed (Evans, 1990;Doll et al, 1994;Wakeford et al, 1994). Additionally, there was no evidence of a germline effect among the children of Japanese atomic bomb survivors (Kodaira et al, 1995(Kodaira et al, , 2004Izumi et al, 2003). Furthermore, as radiation damage is randomly distributed across the genome, PPI should have caused an increase in single gene disorders (Doll et al, 1994).…”

Les leçons inattendues d’Hiroshima

“…La fréquence des malformations néonatales visibles, de l'ordre de 1 %, n'est pas significativement plus élevée chez les enfants issus de parents tous deux fortement irradiés que chez les témoins [3] ; l'incidence des cancers chez ces descendants ne dépend pas de la dose d'irradiation reçue par les parents [4] ; et une analyse de régions minisatellite hypervariables chez eux ne montre pas un taux de mutation augmenté [5]. Enfin, une étude longitudinale chez près de 12 000 descendants de survivants [6] ne montre pas d'augmentation d'incidence de dix-huit affections multifactorielles 4 . Toutes ces données convergent pour indiquer que les effets génétiques chez l'homme, pour une irradiation importante de 1 Gy, sont très faibles 5 [7][8][9].…”