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Aßenmacher, M.* ; Kaiser, J.C. ; Zaballa, I.* ; Gasparrini, A.* ; Küchenhoff, H.*

Exposure-lag-response associations between lung cancer mortality and radon exposure in German uranium miners.

Radiat. Environ. Biophys. 58, 321-336 (2019)
Postprint DOI PMC
Open Access Green
Exposure-lag-response associations shed light on the duration of pathogenesis for radiation-induced diseases. To investigate such relations for lung cancer mortality in the German uranium miners of the Wismut company, we apply distributed lag non-linear models (DLNMs) which offer a flexible description of the lagged risk response to protracted radon exposure. Exposure-lag functions are implemented with B-Splines in Cox models of proportional hazards. The DLNM approach yielded good agreement of exposure-lag-response surfaces for the German cohort and for the previously studied cohort of American Colorado miners. For both cohorts, a minimum lag of about 2year for the onset of risk after first exposure explained the data well, but possibly with large uncertainty. Risk estimates from DLNMs were directly compared with estimates from both standard radio-epidemiological models and biologically based mechanistic models. For age >45year, all models predict decreasing estimates of the Excess Relative Risk (ERR). However, at younger age, marked differences appear as DLNMs exhibit ERR peaks, which are not detected by the other models. After comparing exposure-responses for biological processes in mechanistic risk models with exposure-responses for hazard ratios in DLNMs, we propose a typical period of 15year for radon-related lung carcinogenesis. The period covers the onset of radiation-induced inflammation of lung tissue until cancer death. The DLNM framework provides a view on age-risk patterns supplemental to the standard radio-epidemiological approach and to biologically based modeling.
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Publication type Article: Journal article
Document type Scientific Article
Corresponding Author
Keywords Uranium Miners ; Radon Exposure ; Lung Cancer Mortality ; Distributed Lag Non-linear Models ; Exposure-lag-response Surface; Wismut Cohort; Risk; Models; Rates; Radiation; Smoking
ISSN (print) / ISBN 0301-634X
e-ISSN 1432-2099
Journal Radiation and Environmental Biophysics
Quellenangaben Volume: 58, Issue: 3, Pages: 321-336 Article Number: , Supplement: ,
Publisher Springer
Publishing Place 233 Spring St, New York, Ny 10013 Usa
Non-patent literature Publications
Reviewing status Peer reviewed
Institute(s) Institute of Radiation Medicine (IRM)