Radiation effects on mortality from solid cancers other than lung, liver, and bone cancer in the Mayak worker cohort: 1948-2008.

Radiation effects on mortality from solid cancers other than lung, liver, and bone cancer in the Mayak worker cohort: 1948-2008. The cohort of Mayak Production Association (PA) workers in Russia offers a unique opportunity to study the effects of prolonged low dose rate external gamma exposures and exposure to plutonium in a working age population. We examined radiation effects on the risk of mortality from solid cancers excluding sites of primary plutonium deposition (lung, liver, and bone surface) among 25,757 workers who were first employed in 1948-1982.

Thyroid cancer incidence due to technogenic exposure in childhood.

Thyroid cancer incidence was studied in the cohort of residents of Ozyorsk and Kyshtym, the nearest upwind cities to the Mayak Production Association (Mayak PA), Russia's first plutonium production facility, which has been in operation since 1948. Radioactive contamination of areas around the Mayak PA were from unmonitored releases of inert gases produced by industrial reactors and also from the release of uranium fission products from a radiochemical plant stack where irradiated uranium blocks were refined. Iodine-131 (131I) was the main contributor to the technogenic dose from atmospheric releases.

Lung, liver and bone cancer mortality in Mayak workers.

Workers at the Mayak nuclear facility in the Russian Federation offer the only adequate human data for evaluating cancer risks from exposure to plutonium. Risks of mortality from cancers of the lung, liver and bone, the organs receiving the largest doses from plutonium, were evaluated in a cohort of 17,740 workers initially hired 1948-1972 using, for the first time, recently improved individual organ dose estimates. Excess relative risk (ERR) models were used to evaluate risks as functions of internal (plutonium) dose, external (primarily gamma) dose, gender, attained age and smoking.