Re: cancer history and radiation work

["Bjorn Cedervall" <bcradsafers@hotmail.com>]

>have no answer. A nurse working in a nuclear medicine
>service told me about the cancer history in her
family, including her parents, and was wondering
whether working in nuclear medicine would enhance the
probability of developing cancer. She's now 40 years
old and constantly in contact with injected patients,
mostly for diagnosis (TC-99m and I-131). Her dose
records are far below the limits.
Anybody got an idea?
-----
I think that ICRP Publication 79 (1999) answers this quite clearly. The 
bottom line - as I interpreted the preliminary statements by the ICRP - is 
that for practical purposes this situation should not be a problem. I don't 
have the publication in my hand at this moment of writing but if you check 
out the last chapter it is all there.

There are some illustrative examples given in ICRP Publication 79 and they 
point at the extra risk (on top of the family burden due to _high 
penetrance_ "cancer" genes) is quite minimal even at annual extra doses of 
say the order of 100 mSv (to represent an accumulated occupational dose) or 
something like that. The exception seems to be in radiotherapy where much 
higher doses usually are given (hyperradiosensitive individuals are usually 
also hypersensitive to various chemical agents depending on the underlying 
defect).

Bjorn Cedervall
Associate Professor
Dept. Medical Radiation Biology
Karolinska Institutet, Box 260
S-171 76 Stockholm, Sweden

email: bcradsafers@hotmail.com

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