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

1.2.1
Japanese Atomic Bomb Survivors

1.2.1.3
In Utero Effects>

References

"Preliminary results of the Oxford Survey of Childhood Cancers, published over 30 years ago, suggested an association between the risk of cancer, primarily leukemia, in childhood (within 15 years of birth) and prenatal exposure to diagnostic x-rays in utero (Stewart et al. 1956, 1958). A subsequent survey of 734,243 children born in New England supported this suggestion (MacMahon 1962). The initial results of follow-up of prenatally irradiated atomic bomb survivors during the first 10 years of life had failed to support the suggestion (Jablon and Kato 1970). However, in a more recent, 1950-1984, follow-up based on DS86 dosimetry (Yoshimoto et al. 1988), two cases of childhood cancer have been observed among 1,630 in utero-exposed survivors during the first 14 year of life, both of which occurred in persons who had been heavily exposed (1.39 and 0.56 Gy). The occurrence of these two cases corresponds to an upper bound risk estimate (95% confidence level) of 279 cases/104 PGy, an estimate consistent with Bithell and Stiller’s estimate on reanalysis of the Oxford survey data (Bithell and Stiller 1988)."