New Models for Evaluation of Radiation-Induced Lifetime Cancer Risk and its Uncertainty Employed in the UNSCEAR 2006 Report

Abstract Little, M. P., Hoel, D. G., Molitor, J., Boice, J. D., Jr., Wakeford, R. and Muirhead, C. R. New Models for Evaluation of Radiation-Induced Lifetime Cancer Risk and its Uncertainty Employed in the UNSCEAR 2006 Report. Radiat. Res. 169, 660–676 (2008). Generalized relative and absolute risk models are fitted to the latest Japanese atomic bomb survivor solid cancer and leukemia mortality data (through 2000), with the latest (DS02) dosimetry, by classical (regression calibration) and Bayesian techniques, taking account of errors in dose estimates and other uncertainties. Linear-quadratic and linear-quadratic-exponential models are fitted and used to assess risks for contemporary populations of China, Japan, Puerto Rico, the U.S. and the UK. Many of these models are the same as or very similar to models used in the UNSCEAR 2006 report. For a test dose of 0.1 Sv, the solid cancer mortality for a UK population using the generalized linear-quadratic relative risk model is estimated as 5.4% Sv−1 [90% Bayesian credible interval (BCI) 3.1, 8.0]. At 0.1 Sv, leukemia mortality for a UK population using the generalized linear-quadratic relative risk model is estimated as 0.50% Sv−1 (90% BCI 0.11, 0.97). Risk estimates varied little between populations; at 0.1 Sv the central estimates ranged from 3.7 to 5.4% Sv−1 for solid cancers and from 0.4 to 0.6% Sv−1 for leukemia. Analyses using regression calibration techniques yield central estimates of risk very similar to those for the Bayesian approach. The central estimates of population risk were similar for the generalized absolute risk model and the relative risk model. Linear-quadratic-exponential models predict lower risks (at least at low test doses) and appear to fit as well, although for other (theoretical) reasons we favor the simpler linear-quadratic models.