CHERNOBYL, Ukraine, July 5 (UPI) -- Exposure to radioactive iodine increases the risk of thyroid cancer in children and adolescents, finds a study of those living in Ukraine near Chernobyl.
Geoffrey R. Howe of Columbia University in New York and colleagues screened 13,127 people for thyroid cancer who at the time of the Chernobyl accident were under 18 and lived in highly contaminated areas of Ukraine.
The researchers estimated each participant's individual radiation dose using thyroid radioactivity measurements made shortly after the accident in 1986 and interview data obtained during screening.
The researchers found 45 cases of thyroid cancer in the screened group in comparison with the 11.2 cases expected without the accident, according to the study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Subjects had a tendency toward lower risk of thyroid cancer with increasing age at the time of the exposure. The authors suggest that exposure to radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl accident increased thyroid cancer in those exposed as children and adolescents.
