The Nagasaki Medical College, the present Nagasaki University School of Medicine, has the longest history in Japan with western-style medical education and has a tragic history of the atomic bomb which destroyed the college and caused the loss of more than 890 staff members and students. In these 50 years after the atomic bombing, many epidemiological studies conducted by the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission (ABCC) and followed by the Radiation Effects Research Foundation (RERF) have elucidated the increased incidence of many kinds of neoplasm such as leukemia and solid tumors in atomic bomb survivors. The Atomic Bomb Disease Institute, Nagasaki University School of Medicine, has conducted collaborative studies with RERE Some characteristic and representative studies on atomic bomb survivors conducted by research staff of the School of Medicine and the Atomic Bomb Disease Institute are described here, including leukemia studies, incidences of meningioma and skin cancer by distance from the hypocenter, mental health conditions, and epidemiological and molecular studies using the Nagasaki Tumor and Tissue Registry. (C) 2003 Published by Elsevier B.V.
