Revision 1
March 19, 1998
by Radiation, Science, and Health, Inc.,
Edited by J. Muckerheide

1.2.4
Radium Body-Burden

1.2.4.2
All Cancers

"Data on women who painted radium on the dials of watches early in this century are maintained at the Center for Human Radiobiology, Argonne National Laboratory. After removing 62 cases of malignancies known to have been induced by internally deposited radium, Rowland et al. (1989) surveyed the health status of the remaining 1261 cases. They were classified into three subgroups by the absorbed dose of radium gamma rays as shown in Table 4.12. No dose-dependent increase in deaths from various cancers was seen among the three groups exposed to mean doses of 2.9, 23 and 91 rad by chronic gamma irradiation (Table 4.12).

"Mortality from breast cancer was significantly higher among radium painters in the USA (Table 4.13); however, the excess of breast cancer in the USA cannot be attributed to radiation, as no dose-dependent increase in the incidence of breast cancer was observed in three subgroups classified by exposure dose (Table 4.12). The number of deaths from breast cancer in British luminizers (Table 4.14) was also higher than the control level, although the increase is not statistically significant. This excess may in fact be real, however, because the observed:expected ratio of deaths from breast cancer steadily increased with time since first exposure and reached a maximum of 2.12 (p<0.023) at 30-40 years after first exposure (Baverstock and Papworth, 1989). This temporal trend is different from that in the incidence of various types of solid tumors in survivors of exposure to atomic bomb radiation.

"Furthermore, no dose-dependent increase in the observed:expected ratio was seen: The ratios are 1.67 and 1.51 for young women (<30 years at the start of luminizing work) with low (<20 rad) and high ( >20 rad) exposure, respectively, whereas these values are 2.09 and 0.45 for older women (>30 years at the start of luminizing work) (Baverstock and Papworth 1989). The observed excess of breast cancer in luminizers therefore cannot be attributed to radiation. Hence, 50-year follow-up studies of US and UK radium luminizers suggest but fail to provide positive evidence that low doses of radiation cause breast cancer".