The epidemiology of lung cancer following radiation exposure

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Acknowledgements

All authors of this manuscript have directly participated in the planning, execution, or analysis of the study. The material is original research, has not been previously published and has not been submitted for publication elsewhere while under consideration. All authors agreed to this submission to the International Journal of Radiation Biology and agreed with the content and presentation of the manuscript.

Elisa Pasqual wishes to acknowledge all the coauthors of the SEER analysis presented: Sara Schonfeld, Lindsay M Morton, Daphnee Villoing, Choonsik Lee, Amy Berrington de Gonzalez, and Cari M Kitahara.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Additional information

Funding

The work relating to PUMA (Richardson et al.) was supported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, R03 OH010946). The construction of the French cohort was partially supported by the Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN). IRSN thanks ORANO for its cooperation in the elaboration of the French cohort. For the U.S. contribution, funding was provided by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Dr. Zablotska’s work was funded and supported by the CDC in association with the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) Grant (R21OH011452). For the Czech cohort, funding was provided by the National Radiation Protection Institute (SURO), grant MV-25972-2/OBV. Work on the Ontario cohort was funded by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, the Ontario Ministry of Labor, and the Canadian Cancer Society. The work related to the CFCS study (Zablotska et al.) was funded by National Cancer Institute (NCI) and National Institutes of Health (NIH), Award No. R01CA197422 (Principal Investigator: LBZ). Calculation of dose conversion coefficients (DCCs) was funded by an intramural program of the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, NCI/NIH. The studies reported by Ashley Golden were performed as part of the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements Million Person Study acknowledging the financial support for MPS-related science from NASA [grants # 80NSSC17M0016 and 80NSSC19M0161], U.S. DOE [grants # DE-AU0000042 and DE-AU0000046], Naval Sea Systems Command [contract # N00024-17-C-4322], CDC [grant # 5NUE1EH001315], and the U.S. NRC (grant # NRC-HQ-60-14-G-0011).

Notes on contributors

Lydia B. Zablotska

Lydia B. Zablotska, M.D., Ph.D., is a Salvatore Pablo Lucia Professor of Epidemiology and Public Health in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics in the School of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), where she serves as the Leader of the Occupational and Environmental Epidemiology Area of Concentration. Dr. Zablotska is a physician and epidemiologist with extensive training and publications in radiation epidemiology, biostatistics, and risk modeling. Her research activities have focused primarily on the examination of risks of radiation exposures in various occupational and environmental settings. Dr. Zablotska’s work has clarified the understanding of the effects of occupational radiation exposures on health risks of nuclear power industry workers and workers of the uranium fuel production cycle in various occupational cohorts from the United States and Canada. She has also led/been involved in studies of those affected by the Chernobyl accident in Ukraine and of patients exposed to repeated radiation diagnostic imaging procedures. Dr. Zablotska is a member of NCRP and was responsible for a highly acclaimed workshop for young radiation epidemiology investigators for the Conference of Radiation and Health and RRS.

David B. Richardson

David B. Richardson, Ph.D., MSPH, is Associate Dean for Research in Public Health and Professor in Environmental and Occupational Health at UC Irvine. Prior to this position he was Professor in the Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Deputy Director of the North Carolina Occupational Safety and Health Education and Research Center and director of the center’s Program in Occupational Epidemiology. His research focuses on the health effects of occupational and environmental exposures, particularly with regards to carcinogens. He has conducted studies of cancer among workers in the United States and abroad. Dr. Richardson’s current research includes studies of mortality among nuclear industry workers and uranium miners, and development of new methods for occupational cohort studies. He is a member of Committee 1 (Radiation Effects) of the International Commission on Radiological Protection, serves as a Lead Coordinating Writer for the United Nations Committee on Epidemiological Studies of Radiation and Cancer, Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR), and serves as Associate Editor of the journals Occupational and Environmental Medicine and American Journal of Epidemiology.

Ashley Golden

Ashley Golden, Ph.D, is a senior biostatistician and Director of ORISE Health Studies at Oak Ridge Associated Universities in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where she conducts multidisciplinary research projects in occupational epidemiology, radiation exposure and dosimetry, medical surveillance, and environmental assessments. She has been a collaborator on the Million Person Study of Low-Dose Health Effects for 8 years.

Elisa Pasqual

Elisa Pasqual, MD and PhD, is a postdoctoral Fellow at the Radiation Epidemiology Branch at the National Cancer Institute. Dr. Pasqual’s research interests include medical radiation epidemiology, cancer etiology, and patient safety. Dr. Pasqual is working under the mentorship of Cari Kitahara, Ph.D., senior investigator, on long term effects of radioactive iodine treatment. She also works on thyroid cancer etiology.

Brian Smith

Brian J Smith, Ph.D., is Professor of Biostatistics in the College of Public Health and Director of Biostatistics for the Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Iowa. His research is cancer-focused and includes past study of residential radon, as a member of the Iowa Radon Lung Cancer Study, and ongoing studies in the areas of medical imaging, radiation oncology, and lymphoma. In addition, he recently served as an expert panel member of the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR), where he helped develop a report on lung cancer risk from exposure to radon.