Comparison of the risks of cancer incidence and mortality following radiation therapy for benign and malignant disease with the cancer risks observed in the Japanese A-bomb survivors.

PURPOSES: To compare the radiation-associated relative risks of cancer incidence and mortality in groups exposed to ionizing radiation in the course of treatment for a variety of malignant and non-malignant conditions with those in the Japanese A-bomb survivor cancer incidence and mortality data.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: Comparison of the excess relative risk coefficients derived from published information for each study with the excess relative risk coefficient in comparable (age at exposure, time since exposure, sex) matched subsets of the Japanese A-bomb survivor cancer incidence and mortality data.
RESULTS: Sixty-five studies of persons who have received appreciable doses of ionizing radiation in the course of treatment and for whom there is adequate ascertainment of cancer incidence or mortality are identified, from which 116 cancer-site-specific estimates of excess relative risk are derived. Relative risks tend to be lower in the medical series than in the Japanese A-bomb survivors. The most marked discrepancies between the relative risks in the medical series and in the A-bomb survivors are for leukaemia, where 12 of the 17 medical studies have significantly lower relative risks than those observed in the Japanese data. However, the ratio between the relative risks in the medical studies and in the Japanese data tends to diminish with increasing average or maximal therapy dose. This is observed for all cancer sites and is particularly marked for leukaemia. After taking account of cell sterilization and dose fractionation the apparent differences between the relative risks for leukaemia in the Japanese A-bomb survivors and in the medical series largely disappear. This suggests that cell sterilization largely accounts for the discrepancy between the relative risks in the Japanese data and the medical studies. Other factors, such as the differences in underlying cancer risks between the Japanese A-bomb survivors and the medical series, and dose-fractionation effects, may also contribute.
CONCLUSIONS: The relative risks of cancer in studies of persons exposed to appreciable doses of ionizing radiation in the course of treatment for a variety of malignant and non-malignant conditions are generally less than those in comparable subsets of the Japanese A-bomb survivor cancer incidence and mortality data. Cell sterilization effects can largely explain the discrepancy between the Japanese and the medical series.