TY - JOUR
T1 - Breast cancer incidence in the regions of Belarus and Ukraine most contaminated by the Chernobyl accident
T2 - 1978 to 2016
AU - Zupunski, Ljubica
AU - Yaumenenka, Alesia
AU - Ryzhov, Anton
AU - Veyalkin, Ilya
AU - Drozdovitch, Vladimir
AU - Masiuk, Sergii
AU - Ivanova, Olha
AU - Kesminiene, Ausrele
AU - Pukkala, Eero
AU - Moiseev, Pavel
AU - Prysyazhnyuk, Anatoly
AU - Schüz, Joachim
AU - Ostroumova, Evgenia
N1 - Funding Information:
Our study was supported by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), without receiving external funding. The authors acknowledge the earlier IARC work of Dr. Elisabeth Cardis. The authors want to thank Professors Sergey Krasny and Aleksey Okeanov, Dr. Leonid Levin (N. N. Alexandrov National Cancer Centre of Belarus, Belarus), and Dr. Zoya Fedorenko (National Cancer Institute, Ukraine) for their support of this work and essential contributions to the national cancer registries' operation. We are grateful to Mr. Liacine Bouaoun (Section of Environment and Radiation, IARC, France) for useful discussions and advice on statistical methods.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 UICC
Copyright:
Copyright 2020 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - Even 30 years after the accident, an association between breast cancer incidence and ionizing radiation exposure from Chernobyl fallout remains uncertain. We studied breast cancer incidence in the most contaminated regions of Belarus (Gomel and Mogilev) and Ukraine (Kyiv, Zhytomyr and Chernihiv) before (1978-1986) and after (1987-2016) the accident. Breast cancer cases and female population size data were received from the national cancer registries and the state departments of statistics. The study included 85 132 breast cancers with 150 million person-years at risk. We estimated annual rayon (district)-average absorbed doses to the breast from external and internal irradiation of the adult female population over the period of 1986-2016. We studied an association between rayon-average cumulative absorbed breast dose with 5-year lag, that is, excluding the exposure in 5 years prior to breast cancer diagnosis, and breast cancer incidence using negative binomial regression models. Mean (median) cumulative breast dose in 2016 was 12.3 (5.0) milligray (mGy) in Belarus and 5.7 (2.3) mGy in Ukraine, with the maximum dose of 55 mGy and 54 mGy, respectively. Breast cancer incidence rates statistically significantly increased with calendar year and attained age, and were higher in urban than in rural residents. Adjusting for time, age and urbanicity effects, we found no evidence of increasing incidence with rayon-average 5-year lagged cumulative breast dose. Owing to ecological study design limitations, a case-control study covering this area with individually reconstructed absorbed breast doses is needed testing for association between low-dose protracted radiation exposure and breast cancer risk after Chernobyl.
AB - Even 30 years after the accident, an association between breast cancer incidence and ionizing radiation exposure from Chernobyl fallout remains uncertain. We studied breast cancer incidence in the most contaminated regions of Belarus (Gomel and Mogilev) and Ukraine (Kyiv, Zhytomyr and Chernihiv) before (1978-1986) and after (1987-2016) the accident. Breast cancer cases and female population size data were received from the national cancer registries and the state departments of statistics. The study included 85 132 breast cancers with 150 million person-years at risk. We estimated annual rayon (district)-average absorbed doses to the breast from external and internal irradiation of the adult female population over the period of 1986-2016. We studied an association between rayon-average cumulative absorbed breast dose with 5-year lag, that is, excluding the exposure in 5 years prior to breast cancer diagnosis, and breast cancer incidence using negative binomial regression models. Mean (median) cumulative breast dose in 2016 was 12.3 (5.0) milligray (mGy) in Belarus and 5.7 (2.3) mGy in Ukraine, with the maximum dose of 55 mGy and 54 mGy, respectively. Breast cancer incidence rates statistically significantly increased with calendar year and attained age, and were higher in urban than in rural residents. Adjusting for time, age and urbanicity effects, we found no evidence of increasing incidence with rayon-average 5-year lagged cumulative breast dose. Owing to ecological study design limitations, a case-control study covering this area with individually reconstructed absorbed breast doses is needed testing for association between low-dose protracted radiation exposure and breast cancer risk after Chernobyl.
KW - breast cancer
KW - Chernobyl
KW - Chornobyl
KW - incidence
KW - nuclear accident
KW - radiocesium
U2 - 10.1002/ijc.33346
DO - 10.1002/ijc.33346
M3 - Article
C2 - 33064313
AN - SCOPUS:85094680675
SN - 0020-7136
VL - 148
SP - 1839
EP - 1849
JO - International journal of cancer
JF - International journal of cancer
IS - 8
ER -