Radon and the linear hypothesis

Two papers published in January 1997 present two differenct outcomes for residential exposure to radon. The background to these studies is that increased lung cancers attributable to high radon concentrations have been observed in underground miners. This has given rise to concern that elevated levels in residences could also cause lung cancer. Intervention strategies have been implemented in a number of countries to reduce indoor radon concentrations and several epidemiological studies looking for an association between radon concentration and lung cancer have been conducted. These studies have not provided consistent evidence for a risk from radon in houses. More light on risks from indoor radon may emerge from planned pooled studies which instead of making use of summarised data about the groups studied, as in meta-analysis, combine infomation about all the individual cases and controls, allowing more refined analyses. (author)