| HOME WISE Uranium Project > Enrichment & Fuel Fab. > Impacts > |
(last updated 1 Sep 2011)
> See also:
"RESULTS: We observed that exposure to reprocessed uranium entails increasing risks of mortality from lung cancer and lymphatic and hematopoietic malignancies (the most significant hazard ratio being respectively 1.14 (95% CI: 1.00-1.31) and 1.20 (95% CI: 1.01-1.43) per unit of a time-lagged log-transformed continuous exposure scores), and that the hazard ratios tend to increase with decreasing solubility of the compounds."Uranium carcinogenicity in humans might depend on the physical and chemical nature of uranium and its isotopic composition: results from pilot epidemiological study of French nuclear workers, by Guseva Canu I, Jacob S, Cardis E, et al., in: Cancer causes & control
, ahead of print Aug 28, 2011
"This study investigated the risk of lung cancer in regards to protracted occupational exposure to reprocessed uranium compounds. Two thousand seven hundred and nine male workers employed at the AREVA NC uranium processing plant between 1960 and 2005 in France were included in the cohort.Reprocessed uranium exposure and lung cancer risk, by Canu IG, Jacob S, Cardis E, et al., in: Health Physics
[...] The relative risk of lung cancer tended to increase with decreasing solubility of reprocessed uranium compounds. The highest - though not statistically significant - relative risk was observed among workers exposed to slowly soluble reprocessed uranium dioxide.
This study is the first suggesting an increasing risk of lung cancer associated with exposure to reprocessed uranium. Our results are consistent with data from experimental studies of biokinetics and the action mechanism of slowly soluble uranium compounds, but need to be confirmed in larger studies with more detailed dose-response analyses. "
September 2010 (Vol. 99, No. 3), p. 308-313
"Accidental exposure by inhalation to alpha-emitting particles from mixed oxide (MOX: uranium and plutonium oxide) fuels is a potential long-term health risk to workers in nuclear fuel fabrication plants. For MOX fuels, the risk of lung cancer development may be different from that assigned to individual components (plutonium, uranium) given different physico-chemical characteristics. The objective of this study was to investigate late effects in rat lungs following inhalation of MOX aerosols of similar particle size containing 2.5 or 7.1% plutonium.Late-occurring pulmonary pathologies following inhalation of mixed oxide (uranium + plutonium oxide) aerosol in the rat, by Griffiths N M, Van der Meeren A, Fritsch P, et al., in: Health Physics
[...] In conclusion, late effects following MOX inhalation result in similar risk for development of lung tumors as compared with industrial plutonium oxide. "
September 2010 (Vol. 99, No. 3), p. 347-356
| HOME WISE Uranium Project > Enrichment & Fuel Fab. > Impacts > |