The CancerWeb Report, What's New In Cancer: April, 1996
Childhood Leukemia

• Effects of Chernobyl - Major concerns have been expressed and many exaggerated reports have appeared in the press about cancer risks arising from the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl. The results of the European Childhood Leukaemia-Lymphoma Incidence Study for countries between 1980 and the end of 1991, reported in the British Journal of Cancer for April, were reassuring. They show a slight increase in incidence of childhood leukemia rates of about 0.6% per year in northern, central and eastern Europe, but the detailed figures showed no relationship to estimated radiation dose from the Chernobyl incident. This dose was 1.96 mSv in Belarus, but in the range of 0.01-0.76 mSv in the other regions. These numbers should be compared to 2.4 mSv for natural annual radiation background. Childhood leukemia is normally a rapid indicator of radiation damage, as was found in the Japanese atomic bomb survivors. However, these data did not support any significant association between leukemia and the Chernobyl accident outside of the local area. (Parkin, Br J Cancer 73:1006, 1996)