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. 2011 Jul;119(7):933-9.
doi: 10.1289/ehp.1002674. Epub 2011 Mar 17.

I-131 dose response for incident thyroid cancers in Ukraine related to the Chornobyl accident

Alina V Brenner  1 , Mykola D Tronko, Maureen Hatch, Tetyana I Bogdanova, Valery A Oliynik, Jay H Lubin, Lydia B Zablotska, Valery P Tereschenko, Robert J McConnell, Galina A Zamotaeva, Patrick O'Kane, Andre C Bouville, Ludmila V Chaykovskaya, Ellen Greenebaum, Ihor P Paster, Victor M Shpak, Elaine Ron
Affiliations

I-131 dose response for incident thyroid cancers in Ukraine related to the Chornobyl accident

Alina V Brenner et al. Environ Health Perspect. 2011 Jul.

Abstract

Background: Current knowledge about Chornobyl-related thyroid cancer risks comes from ecological studies based on grouped doses, case-control studies, and studies of prevalent cancers.

Objective: To address this limitation, we evaluated the dose-response relationship for incident thyroid cancers using measurement-based individual iodine-131 (I-131) thyroid dose estimates in a prospective analytic cohort study.

Methods: The cohort consists of individuals < 18 years of age on 26 April 1986 who resided in three contaminated oblasts (states) of Ukraine and underwent up to four thyroid screening examinations between 1998 and 2007 (n = 12,514). Thyroid doses of I-131 were estimated based on individual radioactivity measurements taken within 2 months after the accident, environmental transport models, and interview data. Excess radiation risks were estimated using Poisson regression models.

Results: Sixty-five incident thyroid cancers were diagnosed during the second through fourth screenings and 73,004 person-years (PY) of observation. The dose-response relationship was consistent with linearity on relative and absolute scales, although the excess relative risk (ERR) model described data better than did the excess absolute risk (EAR) model. The ERR per gray was 1.91 [95% confidence interval (CI), 0.43-6.34], and the EAR per 10⁴ PY/Gy was 2.21 (95% CI, 0.04-5.78). The ERR per gray varied significantly by oblast of residence but not by time since exposure, use of iodine prophylaxis, iodine status, sex, age, or tumor size.

Conclusions: I-131-related thyroid cancer risks persisted for two decades after exposure, with no evidence of decrease during the observation period. The radiation risks, although smaller, are compatible with those of retrospective and ecological post-Chornobyl studies.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare they have no actual or potential competing financial interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Dose–response relationship between incident thyroid cancers and I‑131 dose estimates in a cohort study of thyroid cancer and other thyroid diseases after the Chornobyl accident in Ukraine. The solid line represents fitted RRs based on the linear ERR model; data points and error bars represent category-specific RRs and 95% CIs for mean I‑131 dose per category. The fitted linear dose response was adjusted to pass through the lowest I‑131 category. The ERR was adjusted for sex, oblast of residence at the first screening examination, and continuous attained age.
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