|
2010, Volume 26, Number 2, Page(s) 177-181
|
|
DOI: 10.5146/tjpath.2010.01021 |
Chernobyl-Related Cancer: Re-Evaluation Needed |
Sergei JARGIN |
Department of Pathological Anatomy, Peoples' Friendship University of Russia, MOSCOW, RUSSIAN FEDERATION |
Keywords:
Thyroid carcinoma, Radiation, Chernobyl, Pediatric pathology |
There has been no clearly demonstrated cancer incidence increase
that can be attributed to radiation from Chernobyl accident, except
for the thyroid carcinoma in the individuals exposed in childhood
and adolescence. The drastic increase of thyroid cancer started 4
years after the accident. The solid/follicular subtype of papillary
thyroid carcinoma predominated in the early period after the
accident. Histopathological diagnosis of cancer in such cases, if no
infiltrative growth is visible, is based mainly on the nuclear criteria
of papillary carcinoma. Outdated equipment of histopathological
laboratories in early 1990s and insufficient quality of histological
sections hindered reliable assessment of the nuclear criteria. Access
to foreign professional literature has been limited in the former Soviet
Union. Appearance of advanced tumors shortly after the accident
can be explained by the screening effect with detection of neglected
cancers and by the fact that patients were brought from other regions
of the former Soviet Union and registered as Chernobyl-related cases.
Further evidence in favor of the overestimation of thyroid cancer
incidence after Chernobyl accident is discussed. The concluding point
is that immunohistochemical and molecular-genetic tests performed
within the scope of international studies were partly based on an
inadequately selected material, and that supposedly specific features
of radiogenic post-Chernobyl cancers characterize, on average, a
later stadium of tumor progression. Therefore, some published data
on molecular-genetic and other characteristics of post-Chernobyl
malignancies require re-evaluation.
|
|
|
|