ESPEYB15 9 Oncology and chronic disease Late-effects of non-therapeutic radiation on thyroid: the history of atomic bomb survivors (1 abstracts)
Department of Clinical Studies, Radiation Effects Research Foundation, Nagasaki, Japan
To read the full abstract: J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2017;102:2516-2524
The Adult Health Study (AHS) is a clinical program established in 1958 by the Radiation Effects Research Foundation (RERF) as a subset of the Life Span Study to examine the late effects of atomic bomb exposure (1-2). This cross-sectional analysis evaluated the dose-response effect of radiation exposure on the prevalence of thyroid dysfunction and autoimmune thyroid disease in a large cohort of Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bomb survivors exposed to low-dose radiation in childhood. Almost 60 years after this exposure, the increased risk of thyroid disease was not evident anymore, neither was a relationship between thyroid disease prevalence and radiation dose. As stressed by the authors, the study design was necessarily cross-sectional, so they could not examine changes in radiation effects over time. Survival rates represent another possible confounding factor, even if reduced life expectancy has been associated with high-dose radiation exposure due to increased cancer risk and here the authors analysed only those with low-dose exposure. The conclusions are reassuring, but it remains to confirm these findings also in subjects with additional risk factors, such as pre-existing thyroid disease.
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2. Radiation Effects Research Foundation. A Brief Description of the Radiation Effects Research Foundation. Hiroshima, Japan: Letterpress Co.; 2013.