Review of Radon and Lung Cancer Risk

Details

• Personal Author:
  Hornung, Richard W. ; Samet JM
• Description:
  Radon, a long-established cause of lung cancer in uranium and other underground miners, has recently emerged as a potentially important cause of lung cancer in the general population. The evidence for widespread exposure of the population to radon and the well-documented excess of lung cancer among underground miners exposed to radon decay products have raised concern that exposure to radon progeny might also be a cause of lung cancer in the general population. To date, epidemiological data on the lung cancer risk associated with environmental exposure to radon have been limited. Consequently, the lung cancer hazard posed by radon exposure in indoor air has been addressed primarily through risk estimation procedures. The quantitative risks of lung cancer have been estimated using exposure-response relations derived from the epidemiological investigations of uranium and other underground miners. We review five of the more informative studies of miners and recent risk projection models for excess lung cancer associated with radon. The principal models differ substantially in their underlying assumptions and consequently in the resulting risk projections. The resulting diversity illustrates the substantial uncertainty that remains concerning the most appropriate model of the temporal pattern of radon-related lung cancer. Animal experiments, further follow-up of the miner cohorts, and well-designed epidemiological studies of indoor exposure should reduce this uncertainty. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Epidemiology Lung Lung Diseases Mining Neoplasms Occupational Health Radon Respiratory System Respiratory Tract Diseases Risk Assessment Risk Factors Safety Uranium

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• Keywords:
  Author Keywords: Radon Cancer Exposure-levels Indoor Air Pollution Lung-cancer Lung Cancer Models Pulmonary-system-disorders Quantitative-analysis Radon-daughters Radon Decay Products Respiratory-system-disorders Risk-analysis Risk-factors Underground-miners Uranium-compounds Uranium-miners

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• ISSN:
  0272-4332
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  New Mexico ; Ohio ; OSHA Region 5 ; OSHA Region 6
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  DSHEFS - Division of Surveillance, Hazard Evaluations, and Field Studies
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  65-75
• Volume:
  10
• Issue:
  1
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20025511
• Citation:
  Risk Anal 1990 Mar; 10(1):65-75
• CAS Registry Number:
  Uranium (CAS RN 7440-61-1)
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  1990
• Peer Reviewed:
  True
• Source Full Name:
  Risk Analysis
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:d29ff169c0f58b5f738c03a768997bd5c03c3a22554c7a0a982901eef68e9f43a3a02025d82803f3a858edcfb60949aa8db77ba0e81c24ef1f6f735453b35153
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/196842/cdc_196842_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 909.08 KB ]