Title: Total and cancer mortality of the residents living in a zone of weak technogenic radioactive contamination
Authors: V.F. Mazharov, O.Ju. Kutumova
Addresses: Laboratory of Health Care Problems/Institute of Integrated Problems of Hygiene and Occupational Diseases, Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, P.O. Box 10235, Krasnoyarsk, 660099, Russia. ' Centre for Medical Prophylactics, Krasnoyarsk Regional Department of Health Services 26, Weinbaum St., Krasnoyarsk, 660049, Russia
Abstract: Radioactive contamination of the floodplain of the Yenisei River with the wastes dumped by the Krasnoyarsk Mining and Chemical Combine (MCC) might cause external and internal irradiation of a large part of the rural population inhabiting the banks of the Yenisei. Contrary to official data, a few independent studies of the doses received by the exposed population showed that they were quite significant though within the range of low doses. Due to the lack of comprehensive data on the dose status and doses received by the population, the health parameters of the population were studied by comparing the recorded incidences of diseases and mortality in areas located at different distances from the MCC, in the periods before and after the MCC was put into operation, and in different age groups (younger and older than 30, children, working-age persons, and retirement-age persons). Time and space gradients of the cancer morbidity and mortality rate in the RAC area have been found. In the riverside settlements of the RAC area, the mortality from malignant neoplasms (MN) of blood, blood-forming organs, and lymphatic system is higher than in settlements located farther from the Yenisei. As the distance from the MCC down the Yenisei gets greater, the mortality of children due to leukaemia decreases.
Keywords: epidemiology; cancer; morbidity; mortality; radioactive contamination; low radiation.
International Journal of Low Radiation, 2004 Vol.1 No.2, pp.189 - 198
Published online: 10 May 2004 *
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