Epidemiological evidence of lung cancer risk from radon is based mainly on studies of miners. Two such studies among Czech uranium miners were established in 1970 and 1980. A subcohort of 5002 miners and a nested-in case-control study contribute to a joint European project. In this paper, the subcohort of miners with 495 lung cancers is described. The excess relative risk depends linearly on cumulative exposure incurred more than 5 years before. The relative effect from exposures in the distant past decreases by 62% per decade. Simultaneously, the excess relative risk is lower by 43% per decade in dependence on age at exposure. The effect of smoking, partly analysed in the study, suggests a twofold elevation in the relative risk coefficient among non-smokers, but this difference is not significant.

National Radiation Protection Institute Prague Czech Republic

References provided by Crossref.org

Radon and cancer mortality among underground uranium miners in the Příbram region of the Czech Republic

Studies of radon-exposed miner cohorts using a biologically based model: comparison of current Czech and French data with historic data from China and Colorado

Radon-induced lung cancer in French and Czech miner cohorts described with a two-mutation cancer model