Short Takes

CSPH is collaborating with scientists from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), Belarus and Ukraine in cancer studies stemming from the Chernobyl nuclear tragedy. The work is being done under a $3 million contract with NCI. In announcing the initial three-year agreement, CSPH Dean Allan Rosenfield, MD, said, “We can expect that this landmark research will have far-reaching effects in terms of protecting the public’s health.”

Geoffrey Howe, Ph.D., head of the Division of Epidemiology and principal investigator on the NCI contract, called the study “an opportunity to relate radiation exposure to cancer risks from radiation, which is a critical component in cost-benefit analyses of the use of nuclear power. If we do this properly, something good can come out of this disaster.”

After six years of preparation, researchers are proceeding with what Howe believes will “probably be the best studies of radiation and thyroid cancer in children ever done.” Three specific investigations, conducted simultaneously and supported by epidemiological and clinical guidance, will look at thyroid disease in 15,000 children of Belarus and 50,000 children of the Ukraine, and leukemia in 85,000 Ukrainian clean-up workers.

“The greater the radiation, the greater the cancer risk,” explained Howe. In the studies of children, who were measured for exposure within a few weeks of the event, thyroid glands will be examined on an annual or biannual basis, allowing scientists to relate the radiation dose to the development of cancer. Children are especially sensitive to radiation-induced thyroid cancer partly because fallout in the immediate and surrounding areas, specifically radioactive iodine (I131), contaminates food and drink, especially milk, and goes on to concentrate in the small thyroid glands of children.

Clean-up workers involved in the sealing, cleaning and removal of radioactive material will be identified and located in specific areas of Ukraine, where many of them live. Leukemia, a sentinel for what may or may not occur with other cancers, is the first cancer that emerges from radiation and shows the strongest relationship to it in adults.

Large amounts of radioactive material were released into the environment following the most serious accident in the history of the nuclear industry on April, 26, 1986, at Unit 4 of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the Ukraine, then a part of the Soviet Union, near the present borders with Belarus and Russia. Unlike the instantaneous Hiroshima explosion during World War II, the Chernobyl calamity resulted in a protracted exposure, spread over several weeks and months, which may be less harmful than instantaneous exposures. Chernobyl studies are expected to continue for the next 10-20 years.

Columbia Health Sciences investigators joining Howe, NCI, Belorussian and Ukrainian colleagues are: J. David Burch, project manager, Cecily Medvedovsky; L. Zablotska, Judith Fayter, Daniel Fink, Charles Geard, Ellen Greenebaum, Anne Yuko Matsushima, Robert McConnell, Robert Reiss, Daniel Heitjan, Basil Worgul, David Diuguid, Joseph Graziano, Karl Perzin, John P. Bilezikian and David Brenner. Also participating are Columbia faculty from other disciplines including Frank J. Miller, Ph.D., chair, Slavic languages, Columbia College; and Mark Von Hagan, director, Harriman Institute.

Back to Short Takes