[ RadSafe ] Lung, Liver, and Bone Cancer in Mayak Workers due to Plutonium

[Cindy Bloom]

Gary,

I'll share my ignorance and maybe some more knowledgeable person will jump 
in.  Based on the link I sent previously, it appears that the relative risk 
(RRs) for liver cancer for the mixed population was 17 or 2.8 (depending on 
the exposure or exposure potential), which puts the ERR at 16 or 1.8 (if 
I'm adjusting appropriately).  In the U.S. in recent years, it looks like 
liver cancer incidence or mortality is about 3 times as high for males as 
for females;  the statistics I found for Russia indicate that the 
difference is about a factor of 2.  To me this indicates that it's likely 
that the numbers reported in the abstract probably don't include a dropped 
decimal point.

In rereading this abstract I noticed that the liver and bone estimates are 
listed as average-attained age ERRs, not ERRs per gray (and so it's not 
clear that these latter two categories include a dose component).  It would 
be really interesting to see how/if the doses were determined for all 
categories and what the confidence intervals were.

Cindy

At 01:13 PM 6/17/2008 -0500, garyi at trinityphysics.com wrote:
>Hi Cindy,
>
>I probably should not advertise my ignorance  :)
>
>However, here's part of the abstract (emphasis mine):
>
>     By December 31, 2003, 681 lung cancer deaths, 75 liver cancer deaths 
> and 30 bone
>     cancer deaths had occurred. Of these 786 deaths, 239 (30%) were 
> attributed to plutonium
>     exposure. Significant plutonium dose-response relationships (p < 
> 0.001) were observed
>     for all 3 endpoints, with lung and liver cancer risks reasonably 
> described by linear
>     functions. At attained age 60, the ERRs per Gy for lung cancer were 
> 7.1 for males and 15
>     for females; the averaged-attained age ERRs for liver cancer were 2.6 
> and 29 for
>     males and females, respectively; those for bone cancer were 0.76 and 
> 3.4. This study is
>     the first to present and compare dose-response analyses for cancers 
> of all 3 organs.
>
>For liver Ca, the reported ERRs were 2.6 and 29, male vs female.  Could 
>the ERR ratio for
>females and males really be >10 ?  Or is that just a droped decimal point?
>
>-Gary
>
>--------------------------------------------------
>On 16 Jun 2008 at 21:32, Cindy Bloom wrote:
>
>Date sent:      Mon, 16 Jun 2008 21:32:37 -0400
>To:     garyi at trinityphysics.com, <radsafe at radlab.nl>
>From:   Cindy Bloom <radbloom at comcast.net>
>Subject:        Re: [ RadSafe ] Lung, Liver, and Bone Cancer in Mayak Workers
>         due to Plutonium
>Gary,
>
>In another abstract http://www.rrjournal.org/perlserv/?request=get-
>abstract&doi=10.1667%2F0033-
>7587(2000)154%5B0246%3ALCIMW%5D2.0.CO%3B2&ct=1, it was noted that:
>     "Relative risks tended to be higher for females than for males, 
> probably because of
>     the lower baseline risk and the higher levels of plutonium measured 
> in females. "
>     This might be part of your answer. Because this other paper was 
> discussing risk not
>     risk/dose, only the baseline part of the argument would apply. It 
> would be interesting to
>     see the error estimates associated with the risk estimates, as well 
> as the numbers in
>     the subpopulations.
>
>     Cindy
>
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