Nasopharyngeal Irradiation Before Puberty May Reduce Risk of Certain Cancers

["Jacobus, John (OD/ORS)" <jacobusj@ors.od.nih.gov>]

The following can be found at



http://www.medscape.com/reuters/prof/2001/04/04.18/20010417publ001.html



Sorry if this was already posted.

-- John



John Jacobus, MS

Certified Health Physicist 

3050 Traymore Lane

Bowie, MD  20715-2024



E-mail:  jenday1@email.msn.com (H)      



Nasopharyngeal Irradiation Before Puberty May Reduce Risk of Certain Cancers



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WESTPORT, CT (Reuters Health) Apr 17 - The collective incidence of breast,

uterus, ovary and prostate cancers is reduced among patients who underwent

childhood nasopharyngeal radium irradiation as treatment for hearing loss,

according to a report in the American Journal of Epidemiology for April 15. 



Dr. Hsin-chieh Yeh, from the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public

Health in Baltimore, and colleagues collected data on 2925 children who were

treated at the Clinic for Prevention of Deafness in Children in Washington

County, Maryland between 1943 and 1960. 



During the followup period from 1994 through 1995, the researchers compared

the incidence of cancers among 904 individuals who received nasopharyngeal

radium treatment for adenoid hypertrophy and the 2021 who did not receive

radiation therapy. 



Among the surviving members of the cohort who had received radiation

therapy, there were seven cases of brain tumor, three of which were

malignant, compared with no cases of brain tumors among the patients in the

nonirradiated group. In addition, there was a nonsignificant excess risk of

thyroid cancer in the irradiated group. 



However, among the patients who received radiation therapy there was a

decreased risk of breast, uterus, ovary and prostate cancers, although this

decrease was "not statistically significant individually," the researchers

report. 



"The decrease of sex hormone-related cancers in the irradiated group

suggests possible radiation damage to the pituitary, with consequent

reduction in pituitary hormone output and alterations in sexual and other

hormonal development in early life," Dr. Yeh and colleagues speculate. 



Am J Epidemiol 2001;153:749-756. 

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