Program Overview
Chernobyl Accident: Radiation and Health Effects
The cohort consists of approximately 110,000 clean-up workers in Ukraine who worked in the 30 km zone around the plant during 1986-1990 and resided in Kiev City or in one of the following oblasts: Cherkassy, Chernigov, Dnepropetrovsk, Kharkov, Kiev. The cohort was identified through the State Chernobyl Registry. In the first phase of the study, cases of leukemia and other hematologic disorders (specifically multiple myleoma and myelodysplasia ) were sought in all relevant health care institutions and assembled into a leukemia registry. Ultimately, record linkage was used to identify cases occurring among members of the cohort between 1987-2000. For each case, five controls were drawn from cohort members who did not develop hematologic disorders, matched to the case on age and area of residence. To gather information for estimating individual dose, detailed interviews are conducted to obtain data related to cumulative estimated dose to bone marrow. Estimated bone marrow doses based on a specially-developed time-and-motion approach have been evaluated in a statistical analysis (Romanenko et al., 2008) to evaluate the dose response relationship with leukemia risk overall, as well as with two separate subgroups: chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL, a hematologic malignancy generally thought not to be related to radiation exposure) and non-CLL cases.
Read the paper summarizing results: Radiation and the risk of chronic lymphocytic and other leukemias among Chornobyl cleanup workers (Environ Health Perspect, 2013).
Benefits to Ukrainians
The major benefit to Ukrainians and the scientific community at large is that the study will address concerns about the health effects of the accident on the workers who were involved with the clean-up. Other benefits include the establishment of a leukemia registry set up to identify all the cases that occurred during 1987-2000. A panel of international experts has provided local hematologists with a valuable opportunity for professional interaction. Publications describing the findings provide important new data on the risks associated with low-dose, protracted exposure to external radiation.
Roles of United States Participants
- The NCI staff is charged with scientific direction and management of the projects.
- The external advisory group (LAG) is comprised of recognized experts in the relevant scientific fields. They review the activities of the collaborative studies approximately once a year and report to the Director of the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, NCI. Their comments and recommendations are also shared with the collaborating investigators.