In April, 1996, a joint international conference ("One Decade after Chernobyl") was held in Vienna, Austria in cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the European Commission (EC). In this meeting, they came to the conclusion that the abnormality of health condition definitely related to the Chernobyl accident was only thyroid canc...

Chernobyl, the largest ever nuclear accident, caused a huge release of radioactive isotopes, including nearly 2x10(18) Bq of iodine-131. Four years later an increase in thyroid cancer incidence, virtually all papillary carcinomas in children, occurred in the highly exposed areas. The increase has continued, and with increasing latency the tumour molecular and morphological pathology has changed...

Thyroid cancer in children is usually rare, but in the individuals exposed to radiation risk of disease increases considerably. After the Chernobyl accident in 1986, an over 10-fold maximal elevation in the incidence of thyroid cancer was registered about a decade later, cumulatively resulting in more than a thousand of newly diagnosed cases in children who lived in the territories of Belarus, ...

We analyzed questionnaire and physician examination data for 1560 new immigrants from the former USSR divided into three groups by potential exposure to Chernobyl radiation. Two groups were chosen according to soil contamination by cesium-137 at former residences, as confirmed by our findings in a 137Cs body burden study. The third group consisted of "liquidators," persons who worked at the Che...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the outcome of pregnancy in Finnish women after the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant on 26 April 1986. DESIGN Geographic and temporal cohort study. SETTING Finland divided into three zones according to amount of radioactive fallout. SUBJECTS All children who were exposed to radiation during their fetal development. Children born before any effects of the...

There is a consensus that Chernobyl accident has induced thyroid cancer increase in children and adolescents. The UNSCEAR report concluded that no somatic disorders other than thyroid cancer were caused by radiation exposure due to the accident except for acute radiation sickness occurred to the people within the Power Plant at the time of the accident. A hypothesis is discussed in this paper t...

Study of the childhood incidence of cancer and other diseases in Belarus is of great importance because of the present unfavorable environmental situation. About 20% of the children in the republic were exposed in various degrees to radiation as a result of the Chernobyl accident. Since 1987 increases in the incidence of most classes of disease have been reported, including the development of t...

The early medical complications of Chernobyl accident include post radiation disease, which were diagnosed in 134 subjects affected by ionizing radiation. 28 persons died during the first 100 days after the event. The increase occurrence of coronary heart disease, endocrine, haematological, dermatological and other diseases were observed after disaster in the contaminated territories. We also d...

Over 500 cases of thyroid cancer were diagnosed in Belarus between 1986 and 1995 among persons exposed as children (under 15 years of age) to radioactive contamination from the Chernobyl nuclear accident. There is little doubt that radioactive iodine isotopes emitted during the nuclear explosion and subsequent fire were instrumental in causing malignancy in this particular organ. Comparison of ...

Like children exposed to Chernobyl fallout, the workers who cleaned up after the accident, also known as liquidators, have exhibited an increased incidence of thyroid cancer. A high prevalence of ret/PTC3 rearrangement has been found in pediatric post-Chernobyl thyroid tumors, but this feature has not been investigated in liquidator thyroid tumors. In this study we analyzed the prevalence of re...