title: International program on the health effects of the Chernobyl accident.
abstract: The International Program on the Health Effects of the Chernobyl Accident (IPHECA) was established by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 1991. Currently, the technical part of IPHECA consists of five projects addressing the following areas of priority health problems or needs: thyroid, hematology, brain damage in utero, epidemiological registry and oral health. Important findings are: 1) a significant increase of thyroid cancer in children in Belarus and Ukraine since 1989, and in Russia since 1992 though not so pronounced. A relationship between detected thyroid cancers and radiation exposure is yet to be established, 2) no increase yet in the incidence of hemoblastoses in the three States, 3) no relationship established between mental retardation and radiation exposure in utero in 4,500 children investigated. The importance of dosimetry and biological indicators of radiation damage has been recognized by IPHECA. Several methods of biological and physical dosimetry are being employed using instrumentation provided by IPHECA. Some preliminary results indicate: 1) unstable aberrations can indicate an integral exposure but it is heavily biased to recent exposures, 2) when comparing healthy persons and patients with hematological diseases in contaminated areas, there is a higher ratio of total aberrations compared to their background and that the level of stable is lower than unstable aberrations, and 3) by applying electron spin resonance (ESR) it has been shown that the individual distribution of doses approaches a log-normal one, especially for adults, and that a peak shift towards higher doses is noticeable for children.
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D004784:Environmental Monitoring; D006801:Humans; D009381:Neoplasms, Radiation-Induced / Q000209:etiology; D010865:Pilot Projects; D011210:Power Plants; D011829:Radiation Dosage; D018788:Radioactive Hazard Release; D011874:Radiometry; D013964:Thyroid Neoplasms / Q000209:etiology; D014455:Ukraine; D014944:World Health Organization