ition to the study's ability to estimate individual radiation doses based on personal interviews, other strengths of the study included the fact that all cases of thyroid cancer were confirmed independently by a panel of expert pathologists, and the study focused on people exposed as young children and adolescents, a group that is likely to be most susceptible to the effects of radiation exposure to the thyroid gland. Limitations of the study included its small sample size and its reliance on individual recall for reporting factors such as milk-consumption patterns that were used to estimate radiation dose.

Efforts are under way to investigate a larger population in a similar fashion to see if these findings can be replicated, Davis said. For his contributions to the field, earlier this year Davis became the first foreign epidemiologist elected to the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences. The group's status in that country is on a par with the esteemed National Academy of Sciences in the United States. In May he received an honorary diploma in Moscow.

Davis and colleagues have extended their cancer-risk studies to older Chernobyl survivors and are investigating how the damage caused to DNA by radiation influences the risk of developing thyroid cancer.

This work is part of Fred Hutchinson's Global Health Initiative, which focuses on international collaboration to understand and solve some of the most widespread health problems in the world, including cancer and infectious diseases.

SIDEBAR

IT ALL STARTED WITH A RUSSIAN HELICOPTER PILOT WHO WAS TREATED FOR LEUKEMIA AT FRED HUTCHINSON

Providing some long-awaited answers to Chernobyl survivors has been a rewarding research endeavor for Scott Davis, Ph.D., and colleagues at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, but it hasn't been a straightforward one.

Some of the team's greatest achievements were simply establishing the working relationships and infrastructure to get the st
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Contact: Kristen Lidke Woodward
kwoodwar@fhcrc.org
206-667-5095
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
1-Sep-2004

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