Correction to the paper `Risks of radiation-induced cancer at high doses and dose rates'

Abstract

An error occurred in the fitting of the Armitage-Doll model of carcinogenesis to various radiation-exposed groups, recently reported in this journal (Little 1993). The mistake affects only those models in which there are two adjacent radiation-affected stages. The most significant effect is that for leukaemia in the bomb survivors the model with two adjacent radiation-affected stages is now clearly the best fit and fits significantly better than a model with a single radiation-affected stage. The optimal leukaemia model now predicts the linear-quadratic dose-response that has been observed in previous analyses of the Japanese bomb survivor cohort as well as the previously observed variation in excess risk as a function of time after exposure and age at exposure. Low-dose and low-dose-rate population risks for a population having the cancer and overall mortality rates of the current UK population are calculated on the basis of the optimal models fitted to the Japanese data to be about 8% excess cancer deaths Sv-1, 9.5-10% radiation-induced cancer deaths Sv-1 or 1.3 years of life lost Sv-1. Risks for a population having the mortality rates of the current Japanese population are about 6-6.5% excess cancer deaths Sv-1, 7-8% radiation-induced cancer deaths Sv-1 or 0.8 years of life lost Sv-1. These cancer risks do not differ appreciably from those previously calculated (Little 1993). The slight dependence of lifetime cancer risks on administered dose (ranging from 0.001 Sv to 1.0 Sv) and on the length of the time over which the dose is administered (ranging from one year to 100 years) that was one of the principal findings of the previous analyses (Little 1993) is maintained with the new sets of optimal models