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Reliability of thyroid doses due to 131I intake exceeding 5 Gy in a cohort of Belarusian children exposed to Chernobyl fallout

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Abstract

High thyroid doses due to Iodine-131 (131I) intake among individuals exposed in childhood and adolescence to Chernobyl fallout raise questions about their reliability and their impact on the analysis of the radiation-related risk of thyroid cancer and other thyroid diseases in the exposed population. In the present study, an in-depth examination was conducted of thyroid doses from 131I intake over 5 Gy calculated for 131 subjects of the Belarusian-American cohort of individuals exposed after the Chernobyl accident. Thyroid doses in this cohort study were estimated based on individual radiation measurements of 131I thyroidal activity and detailed questionnaire data on individual behavior and consumptions of locally produced foodstuffs. Therefore, these doses provide the best basis for assessing reliability. The analysis showed that the result of direct thyroid measurement was mistakenly assigned to three out of 131 study subjects (2.3% of the total), and, therefore, the instrumental thyroid dose for these individuals cannot be correctly estimated. This study confirmed with a high degree of confidence the reliability of thyroid doses due to 131I intake exceeding 5 Gy that were calculated for the Belarusian-American cohort members.

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Acknowledgement

The authors gratefully acknowledge the contributions of the late Valeri Khrouch, Yuri Gavrilin and Nickolas Luckyanov to the dosimetry of the Belarusian-American cohort study. We would like to express our great thanks to our colleagues who contributed to the development of the dosimetry of the Belarusian-American study at different stages: André Bouville, Paul Voillequé (USA); Yuri Konstantinov, Sergey Shinkarev (Russia); Arkady Khrutchinsky, Semion Kutsen (Belarus).

Funding

This work was supported by the Intramural Research Program of the DCEG, NCI (USA), within the framework of the Belarus-U.S. Study of Thyroid Cancer and Other Diseases Following the Chernobyl Accident (Protocol #OH95-C-NO21) and the Intra-Agency Agreement between the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID, USA) and the NCI, NIAID agreement # DCC-OD-12–900.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. United Institute of Informatics Problems of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, Minsk, Belarus

    Tatiana Kukhta

  2. Institute for Nuclear Problems, Belarusian State University, Minsk, Belarus

    Victor Minenko & Sergey Trofimik

  3. Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, National Cancer Institute, NIH, DHHS, 9609 Medical Center Drive, Room 7E548 MSC 9778, Bethesda, MD, 20892-9778, USA

    Vladimir Drozdovitch

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  1. Tatiana Kukhta
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  2. Victor Minenko
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  3. Sergey Trofimik
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  4. Vladimir Drozdovitch
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Correspondence to Vladimir Drozdovitch.

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Kukhta, T., Minenko, V., Trofimik, S. et al. Reliability of thyroid doses due to 131I intake exceeding 5 Gy in a cohort of Belarusian children exposed to Chernobyl fallout. Radiat Environ Biophys 60, 179–191 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00411-020-00882-7

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