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Recent Results from the Study of
West Bohemian Uranium Miners
Exposed to Radon and Its Progeny
Environmental Health Perspectives 103, Supplement 2, March 1995
[Citation in PubMed]
Recent Results from the Study of
West Bohemian Uranium Miners
Exposed to Radon and Its Progeny
Ladislav Tomásek1 and Sarah C. Darby2
1National Institute of Public Health Prague, Czech Republic;
2Imperial Cancer Research Fund, Oxford,
United Kingdom
Abstract
A brief description is given of the study of West Bohemian uranium miners, and recent and ongoing efforts to improve the quality of the data are summarized. Three recent analyses of the data from the cohort have led to rather different estimates of the excess relative risk of mortality from lung cancer per working level month. The reasons for these different estimates are described, and it is concluded that estimates of lung cancer risk are strongly influenced by the quality of the exposure estimates, especially by the omission of some exposures accumulated during employment at other uranium mines, following the closure of most of the shafts at the original two mines. The most recent analysis has shown that, in common with other cohorts of radon-exposed miners, the excess relative risk of lung cancer per working level month is modified by age and time since exposure. An inverse effect of exposure rate was also demonstrated, but it affected only men at very high concentrations and appears to be related to the time pattern of exposure. In addition, the risk was found to differ between the two main mines, possibly due to the influence of arsenic in the dust of the mines. -- Environ Health Perspect 103(Suppl 2):55-57 (1995)
Key words: cohort study, uranium miners, exposure to radon progeny, lung cancer, relative risk
This article was presented at the Fifth International Conference of the International Society for Environ-mental Epidemiology held 15-18 August 1993 in Stockholm, Sweden.
Address correspondence to Ladislav Tomásek, National Institute of Public Health, Srobárova 48 100 42 Prague, Czech Republic. Telephone 42 2 67310191, ext 329. Fax 42 2 67313075 or 42 2 67311410.
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Last Update: October 7, 1998
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