Lung Cancer Mortality among Male Nuclear Workers of the Mayak Facilities in the Former Soviet Union

Abstract

An analysis of lung cancer mortality in a cohort of 1,669 Mayak workers who started their employment in the plutonium and reprocessing plants between 1948 and 1958 has been carried out in terms of a relative risk model. Particular emphasis has been given to a discrimination of the effects of external gamma-ray exposure and internal alpha-particle exposure due to incorporated plutonium. This study has also used the information from a cohort of 2,172 Mayak reactor workers who were exposed only to external gamma rays. The baseline lung cancer mortality rate has not been taken from national statistics but has been derived from the cohort itself. For both alpha particles and gamma rays, the results of the analysis are consistent with linear dose dependences. The estimated excess relative risk per unit organ dose equivalent in the lung due to the plutonium alpha particles at age 60 equals, according to the present study, 0.6/Sv, with a radiation weighting factor of 20 for alpha particles. The 95% confidence range is 0.39/Sv to 1.0/Sv. For the gamma-ray component, the present analysis suggests an excess relative risk for lung cancer mortality at age 60 of 0.20/Sv, with, however, a large 95% confidence range of-0.04/Sv to 0.69/Sv.

Lauriston S. Taylor Lecture: The Quest for Therapeutic Actinide Chelators

“…The actinides are all radioactive, and most of their isotopes decay by alpha particle emission . The densely ionizing alpha particles emitted by actinides retained in bone and liver, and in the lungs if inhaled, damage and induce cancer in those tissues in a dose-dependent manner (Finkel 1953;Jolley et al 1955;Bensted et al 1965;Levdik and Lemberg 1972;Levdik et al 1972;ICRP 1980a;Leach et al 1973; Thompson 1989;Kreisheimer et al 2000;Koshurnikova et al 2000;NCRP 2001).…”

Advanced Computational Approaches for Characterizing Stochastic Cellular Responses to Low Dose, Low Dose Rate Exposures

“…Note also that the LNT model extrapolation from high to low doses leads to phantom excess risk based on the data of Khokhryakov et al (1996)! The controls (zero-dose group) were based on national cancer statistics for the Russian population , to which some researchers have objected (Kreisheimer et al 2000). Kreisheimer et al (2000) did not find evidence for low-dose-induced protection in their study of lung cancer among Mayak workers but rather found the LNT model to describe risk adequately.…”

Lung, Liver and Bone Cancer Mortality After Plutonium Exposure in Beagle Dogs and Nuclear Workers

“…The MPA registry includes data on occupational and worker histories, results of whole body counting, radiochemical analyses of tissues, bioassays, and air sampling, and estimated internal and external radiation exposures Koshurnikova et al 1999). The MPA worker cohort is a unique source of data on high exposures to plutonium in humans and has allowed direct quantification of the plutonium dose-response functions for lung, liver and bone cancer and the proportion of cancer risk attributable to internal plutonium alpha-particle exposure (Gilbert et al 2004;Koshurnikova et al 1999;Kreisheimer et al 2000;Sokolnikov et al 2008). Epidemiologic studies have shown the risk of cancer incidence and mortality among MPA workers to be significantly related to both external and internal dose (Gilbert et al 2000(Gilbert et al , 2004Koshurnikova et al 1996;Shilnikova et al 2003;Tokarskaya et al 1995).…”