Thyroid-stimulating Hormone Levels in Children from Chernobyl

Environmental Health Perspectives 105, Supplement 6, December 1997

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Thyroid-stimulating Hormone Levels in Children from Chernobyl

Michael R. Quastel, John R. Goldsmith, Ludmilla Mirkin, Svetlana Poljak, Yehiel Barki, Jackov Levy, and Rafael Gorodischer

Soroka Medical Center and Faculty of Health Sciences, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva, Israel

Abstract
This study assesses parameters of thyroid function in persons who resided in Ukraine, Belarus, and southern Russia and exposed at 0 to 16 years of age to radioiodine contamination from the Chernobyl accident. Six to eight years after the accident a group of 300 young people who had immigrated to Israel were interviewed, underwent physical and ultrasound thyroid examination, and had their serum tested for thyroid-stimulating hormones (TSH), thyroid hormones, thyroglobulin, and antithyroid antibodies. Comparative groups came from areas with high (>1 Ci/km²) or low (<1 Ci/km²) ¹³⁷Cs ground contamination. Girls from high contamination areas, when compared to girls from areas with low ground contamination, showed significant upward shifts in levels of serum TSH (p=0.023) although remaining within normal limits. Boys showed no significant differences. There was no evidence for differences in thyroid size or nodularity between the two groups of girls. A working hypothesis is proposed by which the shift in TSH levels in girls from high radiocontamination areas was associated with subclinical radiation damage from environmental radioiodine at the time of the accident. -- Environ Health Perspect 105(Suppl 6):1497-1498 (1997)

Key words: Chernobyl, radiation, thyroid, radioiodine, children, thyroid-stimulating hormone, TSH

This paper is based on a presentation at the International Conference on Radiation and Health held 3-7 November 1996 in Beer Sheva, Israel. Abstracts of these papers were previously published in Public Health Reviews 24(3-4):205-431 (1996). Manuscript received at EHP 5 September 1997; accepted 2 October 1997.
The authors thank the Israel Ministry of Health for support and A. Snopik and S. Peremuter for technical assistance.
Address correspondence to Dr. M.R. Quastel, Institute of Nuclear Medicine, Soroka Medical Center, P.O. Box 151, Beer Sheva, 84101 Israel. Telephone: 972 7 6400754. Fax: 972 7 6400765. E-mail: maay100@bgumail.bgu.ac.il
Abbreviations used: Ci, curie; FSU, former Soviet Union; IAEA, International Atomic Energy Agency; kBq, kilobequerel; TSH, thyroid-stimulating hormone; µIU, microinternational units.

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