The United Kingdom Childhood Cancer Study of exposure to domestic sources of ionising radiation: 2: gamma radiation

Investigators, UK Childhood Cancer Study

doi:10.1038/sj.bjc.6600277

Cited by 43 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…Various methods have been proposed for assessing the possible effects of such unmeasured confounding factors (31;32). Unmeasured confounding variables may play a role in the negative findings in some previous studies of leukemia and natural background radiation (8–10). Confounding factors, in particular lifestyle factors, can be most easily addressed in case-control studies, since few population registries ascertain this type of information.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The United Kingdom Childhood Cancer Study (UKCCS), which included radiation measurements on about 2200 cases of childhood cancer of all types (of which about a third are leukemia) and around twice as many controls (9;10) has, by the results of our paper, little power to detect trends with dose – our calculations suggest that it would require at least 9600 leukemia cases to have 80% power of detecting a positive trend at the 1-sided 5% level.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Statistical Power of Epidemiological Studies Analyzing the Relationship between Exposure to Ionizing Radiation and Cancer, with Special Reference to Childhood Leukemia and Natural Background Radiation

et al. 2010

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Little M.P., Wakeford R., Lubin J.H. and Kendall G.M., The statistical power of epidemiological studies analyzing the relationship between exposure to ionizing radiation and cancer, with special reference to childhood leukemia and natural background radiation. Radiat. Res. The etiology of childhood leukemia remains generally unknown, although risk models based on the Japanese A-bomb survivors imply that the dose accumulated from protracted exposure to low-level natural background ionizing radiation materially raises the risk of leukemia in children. In this paper a novel Monte Carlo score-test methodology is used to assess the statistical power of cohort, ecological and case-control study designs, using the linear low-dose part of the BEIR V model derived from the Japanese data. With 10 (or 20) years of follow-up of childhood leukemias in Great Britain, giving about 4600 (or 9200) cases, under an individual-based cohort design there is 67.9% (or 90.9%) chance of detecting an excess (at 5% significance level, 1-sided test); little difference is made by extreme heterogeneity in risk. For an ecological design these figures reduce to 57.9% (or 83.2%). Case-control studies with five controls per case achieve much of the power of a cohort design, 61.1% (or 86.0%). However, participation bias may seriously affect studies that require individual consent, and area-based studies are subject to severe interpretational problems. For this reason register-based studies, in particular those that make use of predicted doses that avoid the need for interviews, have considerable advantages. We argue that previous studies have been underpowered (all have power <80%), and some are also subject to unquantifiable biases and confounding. Sufficiently large studies should be capable of detecting the predicted risk attributable to natural background radiation.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Statistical Power of Epidemiological Studies Analyzing the Relationship between Exposure to Ionizing Radiation and Cancer, with Special Reference to Childhood Leukemia and Natural Background Radiation

et al. 2010

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“…Measurement data used in this study consisted of 2,283 indoor gamma radiation dose-rates from the National Survey of UK homes (Wrixon et al, 1988), and 7,916 indoor gamma radiation dose-rates from the UK Childhood Cancer Study (United Kingdom Childhood Cancer Study Investigators, 2002). Kendall et al .…”

Section: Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There have been many studies investigating correlations between exposure to low-dose-rate natural background gamma radiation and childhood cancer (e.g. (Evrard et al, 2006; Richardson et al, 1995; United Kingdom Childhood Cancer Study Investigators, 2002)), most of them reporting a null result. However, the lack of statistical power in these studies (Little et al, 2010) suggests that reliable conclusions cannot be made.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatial prediction of naturally occurring gamma radiation in Great Britain

Chernyavskiy

Kendall

Wakeford

et al. 2016

Journal of Environmental Radioactivity

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Gamma radiation from natural sources is an important component of background radiation, and correlates with childhood leukaemia risk in Great Britain. The geographic variation of indoor gamma radiation dose-rates in Great Britain is explored using various geo-statistical methods. A multi-resolution Gaussian process (MRGP) model using radial basis functions with 2, 4, or 8 components, is fitted via maximum likelihood, and a non-spatial model is also used, fitted by ordinary least squares. Because of the dataset size (N=10,199), four other parametric spatial models are fitted by variogram-fitting. A randomly selected 70:30 split is used for fitting:validation. The models are evaluated based on their predictive performance as measured by Mean Absolute Error, Mean Squared Error, as well as Pearson correlation and rank-correlation between predicted and actual dose-rates. Each of the four parametric models (Matérn, Gaussian, Bessel, Spherical) fitted the empirical variogram well, and yielded similar predictions at >50 km separation, although with more substantial differences in predicted variograms at <50 km. The MRGP model with 8 components had the best predictive accuracy among the models considered. The Spherical, Bessel, Matérn, Gaussian and ordinary least squares models had progressively worse predictive performance, the ordinary least squares model being particularly poor in this respect.

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“…Calculations, based on risk models derived from the atomic-bomb survivors 78 suggest that about 15% of childhood leukaemia incidence in Great Britain is attributable to ubiquitous exposure to natural background radiation, although the uncertainties associated with this estimate are substantial. Many epidemiological studies have examined the putative association between childhood leukaemia and exposure to radiation from natural sources 91011121314 . While positive associations have been reported from some studies 914 their interpretation has been problematical due to study deficiencies, e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A record-based case–control study of natural background radiation and the incidence of childhood leukaemia and other cancers in Great Britain during 1980–2006

et al. 2012

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We conducted a large record-based case-control study testing associations between childhood cancer and natural background radiation. Cases (27 447) born and diagnosed in Great Britain during 1980–2006 and matched cancer-free controls (36 793) were from the National Registry of Childhood Tumours. Radiation exposures were estimated for mother’s residence at the child’s birth from national databases, using the County District mean for gamma-rays, and a predictive map based on domestic measurements grouped by geological boundaries for radon. There was 12% excess relative risk (95% CI 3, 22; 2-sided p=0.01) of childhood leukaemia per millisievert of cumulative red-bone-marrow dose from gamma-radiation; the analogous association for radon was not significant, excess relative risk 3% (95% CI −4, 11; p=0.35). Associations for other childhood cancers were not significant for either exposure. Excess risk was insensitive to adjustment for measures of socio-economic status. The statistically significant leukaemia risk reported in this reasonably-powered study (power ~50%) is consistent with high dose-rate predictions. Substantial bias is unlikely, and we cannot identify mechanisms by which confounding might plausibly account for the association, which we regard as likely to be causal. The study supports the extrapolation of high dose-rate risk models to protracted exposures at natural background exposure levels.

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The United Kingdom Childhood Cancer Study of exposure to domestic sources of ionising radiation: 2: gamma radiation

Cited by 43 publications

References 5 publications

The Statistical Power of Epidemiological Studies Analyzing the Relationship between Exposure to Ionizing Radiation and Cancer, with Special Reference to Childhood Leukemia and Natural Background Radiation

The Statistical Power of Epidemiological Studies Analyzing the Relationship between Exposure to Ionizing Radiation and Cancer, with Special Reference to Childhood Leukemia and Natural Background Radiation

Spatial prediction of naturally occurring gamma radiation in Great Britain

A record-based case–control study of natural background radiation and the incidence of childhood leukaemia and other cancers in Great Britain during 1980–2006

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