Population doses, excess deaths and loss of life expectancy from mass chest x-ray examinations in Japan--1980.

Abstract

The number of mass chest x-ray examinations in Japan in 1980 was 26.6 million and the average effective dose equivalent was 26 mrem per examination. The genetically significant dose was .017 mrem per person per year, the per caput mean marrow dose was 5.9 mrem, the leukemia significant dose was 5.2 mrem and the malignancy significant dose was 2.8 mrem. The excess deaths were calculated to be 70-280 depending on the risk model used. Those would be in excess to the 3.7 million cancer deaths normally expected among the examined population. The loss of life expectancy calculated with a relative risk model was 38 yr for males and 43 yr for females due to leukemia with a latent period of 2 yr and an expression period of 25 yr, and 12 yr for males and 14 yr for females due to other cancers with a latent period of 10 yr and an expression period of lifetime in the 20-24 age group.