Life span study report 10 - 1

The present study extends the previous report on cancer mortality among atomic bomb survivors by adding data from four additional years of follow-up (1979 - 82) and by expanding the cohort (now designated LSS-E85) to include 11,393 Nagasaki survivors located between 2,500 - 9,999 m from the hypocenter at the time of the bombing (ATB). Significant dose responses were observed for leukemia, for cancers of the lung, female breast, stomach, colon, esophagus, and urinary bladder, and for multiple myeloma. Four new categories of cancer were also investigated: the results for cancers of the liver and intrahepatic bile ducts and of the ovary and other uterine adnexa were suggestive of significant radiation effects, but the positive dose responses for cancers of the gallbladder and prostate were not significant. Due to diagnostic difficulties and the lack of evidence for radiogenic effects at these sites, the results for liver and ovarian cancers do not provide convincing evidence for radiogenic effects. With the exception of multiple myeloma, the relative risk (RR) of radiation-induced cancer mortality was greater for women than for men, for each nonleukemic cancer with a significant overall dose response. These differences can be attributed in large measure to differences in the background cancer mortality rates, which are generally much higher for men than women. For leukemia there was no significant sex difference in the RR, while for multiple myeloma women had a slightly, though nonsignificantly, lower RR than males. A statistically significant interaction (p = .008) between the effects of age ATB and attained age on radiation-related mortality was also observed for cancers other than leukemia. In particular, the initially large RRs seen in those who were young ATB have decreased with time, while the smaller RRs for those who were older ATB tended to increase. (author)