Post-Chornobyl Thyroid Cancers in Ukraine. Report 1: Estimation of Thyroid Doses

Abstract Likhtarov, I., Kovgan, L., Vavilov, S., Chepurny, M., Bouville, A., Luckyanov, N., Jacob, P., Voilleque, P. and Voigt, G. Post-Chornobyl Thyroid Cancers in Ukraine. Report 1: Estimation of Thyroid Doses. Radiat. Res. 163, 125–136 (2005). About 1.8 EBq of 131I was released into the atmosphere during the Chornobyl accident that occurred in Ukraine on April 26, 1986. More than 10% of this activity was deposited on the territory of Ukraine. Beginning 4–5 years after the accident, an increase in the incidence of thyroid cancer among children, believed to be caused in part by exposure to 131I, has been observed in different regions of Ukraine. A three-level system of thyroid dose estimation was developed for the reconstruction of thyroid doses from 131I for the entire population of Ukrainian children aged 1 to 18 at the time of accident: (1) At the first level, individual doses were estimated for the approximately 99,000 children and adolescents with direct measurements of radioactivity in the thyroid ...