Thyroid Cancer Rate Rose Tenfold After Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster

After the Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster, the thyroid cancer rate among Ukrainian youths in the surrounding area shot up tenfold, according to a new study that refines earlier estimates.

In the decade after the 1986 reactor explosion, researchers have counted 577 cases of thyroid cancer in youths 18 and under, compared to just 59 cases in the previous five years. That translates into a rate of 45 cases per 10 million youths, up from four to six cases per 10 million beforehand.

Hardest hit were children 5 or under at the time of the accident, researchers based at the Academy of Medical Sciences in Kiev report today in Cancer, a U.S. journal. They attribute the radiation-induced tumors, which were more aggressive than typical pediatric cases, to the presence in air and especially in milk of radioactive iodine-131, which builds up in the thyroid gland.

*

Compiled from Times staff and wire reports.