Study of childhood leukemia after Chernobyl

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Of 23 radiation accidents that have occurred since 1945, the accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station in Ukraine, on 26 April 1986, has generated the largest number of victims. According to the International Atomic Agency, radioactive gases and aerosols released from the damage unit contaminated Belarus and Russia, as well as Ukraine. The Gomel region in Belarus received a high level of fallout containing ィイD1137ィエD1Cs. Most of the radionuclides are long-lived and have contaminated the inhabitants of this area. Radiation disasters induce various types of cancers with different latency periods; these cancers include leukemia and thyroid and breast cancer. Kazarkov et al. reported a marked increase in the frequency of thyoid cancer in children in Belarus, in particular those in the Gomel region, 1990.We performed a clinical survey to determine whether internal exposure to the long-lived radionuclide influenced the occurrence of leukemia. In the present study, the types and laborat … More ory findings of children with leukemia were compared between the contaminated. area (Gomel region) and non-contaminated area (Vitebsk region) in Belarus. The frequency of patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) was not different in the two areas. In contrast, the percentage of patients with chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) among whole leukemia patients appeared to be higher in Gomel, but it was not statistically significant. At the onset of ALL patients, the relative number of younger patients (0 to 2 years old) was substanitially greater in Gomel than in Vitebsk (35% vs. 14%, p=0.0086). The ratio of the patients with elevated level of LDH (>500 IU/L) was also different; 68.8% in Gomel and 37.8% in Vitebsk. However, there was no difference in leukocyte count, hemoglobin level and platelet count between the two groups. Thus, these results showed that leukemia patients living in areas contaminated with a mixture of radionuclides have clinical findings different from those in non-contaminated area. Less