Epidemiological evidence of lung cancer risk from radon is based mainly on studies of underground miners where occupational exposures were, historically, relatively high in comparison to residential indoor exposure. However, radiation protection measures have caused radon levels in uranium mines to decrease significantly in more recent periods. Miners' occupational exposure is limited to their working years while they are exposed to environmental radon at home over their entire lifetime. Even during their limited working years, workers spend much more time at home than in workplaces. The biological effect of radon in mines cannot be distinguished from the biological effect of residential radon. Therefore, for an exposure-risk relationship study of former uranium miners, excess radon-induced lung cancer cases should be related to the combined radon exposure cumulated in workplaces and at homes in excess of the radon exposure of the reference population. This is especially important when residential radon levels differ or vary significantly between miners and the reference population over the course of extended follow-up years. This paper reviews some recent studies on former uranium miners, shares what seems controversial to the author and wonders whether lifetime exposure at home to widely varying radon concentrations can actually impact the quality of exposure assessment, and hence impact the results of the exposure-risk relationship.

• Klíčová slova
• Exposure assessment, Radon-222, Risk assessment, Uranium miners,
• MeSH
• bydlení MeSH
• dospělí MeSH
• hodnocení rizik MeSH
• hornictví * MeSH
• lidé středního věku MeSH
• lidé MeSH
• nádory vyvolané zářením epidemiologie   MeSH
• nemoci z povolání epidemiologie   MeSH
• pracovní expozice * MeSH
• radioaktivní látky znečišťující vzduch * MeSH
• radon * MeSH
• senioři nad 80 let MeSH
• senioři MeSH
• uran * MeSH
• znečištění vzduchu ve vnitřním prostředí MeSH
• Check Tag
• dospělí MeSH
• lidé středního věku MeSH
• lidé MeSH
• mužské pohlaví MeSH
• senioři nad 80 let MeSH
• senioři MeSH
• Publikační typ
• časopisecké články MeSH
• Geografické názvy
• Česká republika epidemiologie   MeSH
• Francie epidemiologie   MeSH
• Názvy látek
• radioaktivní látky znečišťující vzduch * MeSH
• radon * MeSH
• uran * MeSH

The aim of the present study was to evaluate the risk of lung cancer from combined exposure to radon and smoking. Methodologically, it is based on case-control studies nested within two Czech cohort studies of nearly 11,000 miners followed-up for mortality in 1952-2010 and nearly 12,000 inhabitants exposed to high levels of radon in homes, with mortality follow-up in 1960-2010. In addition to recorded radon exposure, these studies use information on smoking collected from the subjects or their relatives. A total of 1,029 and 370 cases with smoking information have been observed in the occupational and environmental (residential) studies, respectively. Three or four control subjects have been individually matched to cases according to sex, year of birth, and age. The combined effect from radon and smoking is analyzed in terms of geometric mixture models of which the additive and multiplicative models are special cases. The resulting models are relatively close to the additive interaction (mixing parameter 0.2 and 0.3 in the occupational and residential studies, respectively). The impact of the resulting model in the residential radon study is illustrated by estimates of lifetime risk in hypothetical populations of smokers and non-smokers. In comparison to the multiplicative risk model, the lifetime risk from the best geometric mixture model is considerably higher, particularly in the non-smoking population.

• MeSH
• hornictví MeSH
• kouření škodlivé účinky   MeSH
• lidé MeSH
• nádory plic epidemiologie   etiologie   MeSH
• radioaktivní látky znečišťující vzduch škodlivé účinky   MeSH
• radon škodlivé účinky   MeSH
• riziko MeSH
• studie případů a kontrol MeSH
• uran MeSH
• vystavení vlivu životního prostředí škodlivé účinky   analýza   MeSH
• Check Tag
• lidé MeSH
• Publikační typ
• časopisecké články MeSH
• práce podpořená grantem MeSH
• Geografické názvy
• Česká republika epidemiologie   MeSH
• Názvy látek
• radioaktivní látky znečišťující vzduch MeSH
• radon MeSH
• uran MeSH