• Tetsuya Ohira, Hideto Takahashi, Seiji Yasumura, Akira Ohtsuru, Sanae Midorikawa, Satoru Suzuki, Toshihiko Fukushima, Hiroki Shimura, Tetsuo Ishikawa, Akira Sakai, Shunichi Yamashita, Koichi Tanigawa, Hitoshi Ohto, Masafumi Abe, Shinichi Suzuki, and and for the Fukushima Health Management Survey Group.
• Radiation Medical Science Center for the Fukushima Health Management Survey, Fukushima Medical University Department of Epidemiology Department of Public Health Department of Radiation Health Management Department of Thyroid and Endocrinology Department of Laboratory Medicine Department of Radiation Physics and Chemistry Department of Radiation Life Sciences, Fukushima Medical University School of Medicine, Fukushima Atomic Bomb Disease Institute, Nagasaki University, Nagasaki, Japan.
• Medicine (Baltimore). 2016 Aug 1; 95 (35): e4472e4472.

AbstractThe 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake led to a subsequent nuclear accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. In its wake, we sought to examine the association between external radiation dose and thyroid cancer in Fukushima Prefecture. We applied a cross-sectional study design with 300,476 participants aged 18 years and younger who underwent thyroid examinations between October 2011 and June 2015. Areas within Fukushima Prefecture were divided into three groups based on individual external doses (≥1% of 5 mSv, <99% of 1 mSv/y, and the other). The odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals of thyroid cancer for all areas, with the lowest dose area as reference, were calculated using logistic regression models adjusted for age and sex. Furthermore, the ORs of thyroid cancer for individual external doses of 1 mSv or more and 2 mSv or more, with the external dose less than 1 mSv as reference, were calculated. Prevalence of thyroid cancer for the location groups were 48/100,000 for the highest dose area, 36/100,000 for the middle dose area, and 41/100,000 for the lowest dose area. Compared with the lowest dose area, age-, and sex-adjusted ORs (95% confidence intervals) for the highest-dose and middle-dose areas were 1.49 (0.36-6.23) and 1.00 (0.67-1.50), respectively. The duration between accident and thyroid examination was not associated with thyroid cancer prevalence. There were no significant associations between individual external doses and prevalence of thyroid cancer. External radiation dose was not associated with thyroid cancer prevalence among Fukushima children within the first 4 years after the nuclear accident.

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