Impact of uncertainties in exposure assessment on estimates of thyroid cancer risk among Ukrainian children and adolescents exposed from the Chernobyl accident

• Published in: PloS one 2014-01, Vol.9 (1), p.e85723
• Main Authors: Little, Mark P, Kukush, Alexander G, Masiuk, Sergii V, Shklyar, Sergiy, Carroll, Raymond J, Lubin, Jay H, Kwon, Deukwoo, Brenner, Alina V, Tronko, Mykola D, Mabuchi, Kiyohiko, Bogdanova, Tetiana I, Hatch, Maureen, Zablotska, Lydia B, Tereshchenko, Valeriy P, Ostroumova, Evgenia, Bouville, André C, Drozdovitch, Vladimir, Chepurny, Mykola I, Kovgan, Lina N, Simon, Steven L, Shpak, Victor M, Likhtarev, Ilya A
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adolescents; Assessments; Background radiation; Bias; Biology; Biometrics; Calibration; Cervical cancer; Chernobyl Nuclear Accident; Child; Child health; Child, Preschool; Children; Complications; Curvature; Dose-Response Relationship, Radiation; Dosimeters; Dosimetry; Electric power plants; Endocrinology; Environmental Exposure; Epidemiology; Error analysis; Error correction; Estimates; Exposure; Female; Health aspects; Health risks; Humans; Incidence; Infant; Infant, Newborn; Iodine; Iodine 131; Iodine Radioisotopes; Likelihood Functions; Male; Mathematical analysis; Mathematics; Medical screening; Medicine; Metabolism; Monte Carlo Method; Monte Carlo simulation; Neoplasms, Radiation-Induced - diagnosis; Neoplasms, Radiation-Induced - epidemiology; Neoplasms, Radiation-Induced - pathology; Nuclear accidents; Nuclear accidents & safety; Nuclear electric power generation; Nuclear energy; Nuclear power plants; Odds Ratio; Physics; Radioactive fallout; Radiometry; Regression analysis; Risk Factors; Science Policy; Skin cancer; Statistical analysis; Statistical methods; Studies; Teenagers; Thyroid; Thyroid cancer; Thyroid Gland - pathology; Thyroid Gland - radiation effects; Thyroid Neoplasms - diagnosis; Thyroid Neoplasms - epidemiology; Thyroid Neoplasms - pathology; Ukraine - epidemiology; Uncertainty
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0085723

The 1986 accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant remains the most serious nuclear accident in history, and excess thyroid cancers, particularly among those exposed to releases of iodine-131 remain the best-documented sequelae. Failure to take dose-measurement error into account can lead to bias in assessments of dose-response slope. Although risks in the Ukrainian-US thyroid screening study have been previously evaluated, errors in dose assessments have not been addressed hitherto. Dose-response patterns were examined in a thyroid screening prevalence cohort of 13,127 persons aged