Summary of the 15-year observation of thyroid cancer among Ukrainian children after the Chernobyl accident

According to the data of the clinico-morphological register of the Institute of Endocrinology and Metabolism in Ukraine, for the post-Chernobyl period in Ukraine (1986-2000), 472 cases of thyroid cancer have been reported in children who have been operated at the age of up to 15 years, among which, 431 were born before the Chernobyl accident, 11 were "in utero" at the time of the accident, and 30 were born after the Chernobyl accident. The largest number of cases (57) has been reported in 1996, which made up 0.57 per 100 000 children aged 0-14, and exceeded by 11.4 times the average pre-Chernobyl incidence rate (0.05) in this age group. The highest incidence rate has been reported in six regions of Ukraine which have been the most contaminated by iodine radionuclides (Kiev, Chernigov, Zhitomir, Rovno, Cherkassy regions, and Kiev City). The additional incidence in these regions was rising with increasing thyroid exposure dose, and this is most evident for a dose over 0.5 Gy. Morphological studies showed that in most of cases, the tumors under study (92.1 %) represented papillary carcinoma (with a dominant solid-follicular structure) that were characterized by a high incidence of regional metastastic spreading (62% of cases). (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.