Female breast cancer risk in Bryansk Oblast, Russia, following prolonged low dose rate exposure to radiation from the Chernobyl power station accident.

Background: Ionizing radiation is a known cause of female breast cancer, but there have been few studies of the risk after prolonged radiation exposure at low dose rates.

Methods: This population-based case-control study estimated breast cancer risk after ∼25 years' exposure to radiation from the Chernobyl accident. Cases (n = 468) were women ≤55 years old when first diagnosed with invasive breast cancer during October 2008 through  February 2013, who lived in Bryansk Oblast, Russia at the time of the accident and their diagnoses.

Influence of the external and internal radioactive contamination of the body and the clothes on the results of the thyroidal I measurements conducted in Belarus after the Chernobyl accident-Part 2: Monte Carlo simulation of response of detectors near the thyroid.

This paper describes the calculation of the response of the most common types of radiation detectors that were used within the first few weeks after the Chernobyl accident to determine the activity of I in the thyroids of Belarusian subjects of an epidemiologic study of thyroid cancer. The radiation detectors, which were placed against the necks of the subjects, measured the exposure rates due to the emission of gamma rays resulting from the radioactive decay of I in their thyroids. Because of the external and internal radioactive contamination of the monitored subjects, gamma radiation from many radionuclides in various locations contributed to the exposure rates recorded by the detectors.

Influence of the external and internal radioactive contamination of the body and the clothes on the results of the thyroidal I measurements conducted in Belarus after the Chernobyl accident. Part 1: Estimation of the external and internal radioactive contamination.

The estimation of the thyroid doses received in Belarus after the Chernobyl accident is based on the analysis of exposure-rate measurements performed with radiation detectors placed against the necks of about 130,000 residents. The purpose of these measurements was to estimate the I activity contents of the thyroids of the subjects. However, because the radiation detectors were not equipped with collimators and because the subjects usually wore contaminated clothes, among other factors, the radiation signal included, in addition to the gamma rays emitted during the decay of the I activity present in the thyroid, contributions from external contamination of the skin and clothes and internal contamination of organs other than the thyroid by various radionuclides.