Lifetime risk of lung cancer due to radon exposure projected to Japanese and Swedish populations.

Abstract

Lifetime risk projections depend greatly on both background lung cancer rates and the selection of the risk model. Since background lung cancer rates differ from subject populations and the time, etiological risk of lifetime lung cancer mortality per unit radon exposure in WLM should be estimated for each subject population and the time of interest. To answer quantitatively how much are the differences among the projected risks for different populations, the Swedish case-control-study-based risk projection model was applied to the Japanese and Swedish populations from 1962 to 1997 as subject populations because of their distinct trends of lung cancer rates. To compare the results with the reference population and authorized risk projection models, U.S. population 1997 and the two risk projection models in BEIR VI report were applied, respectively. Lifetime risk of lung cancer mortality projected for Japanese, Swedish, and U.S. populations in 1997 per radon progeny exposure were estimated to range from 1.50 (0.40-3.19) x 10(-4) WLM(-1) to 9.86 (2.62-20.9) x 10(-4) WLM(-1), which could be compared to the detriment associated with a unit effective dose. Conclusive dose conversion coefficients in this study ranged from 2.05 (0.55-4.37) to 13.5 (3.59-28.6) mSv WLM(-1), and within this range the discrepancy between dosimetric and epidemiological approaches was included.