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Indoor radon exposure and lung cancer: a review of ecological studies

Lung cancer has high mortality and incidence rates. The leading causes of lung cancer are smoking and radon exposure. Indeed, the World Health Organization (WHO) has categorized radon as a carcinogenic substance causing lung cancer. Radon is a natural, radioactive substance; it is an inert gas that...

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Autores principales: Yoon, Ji Young, Lee, Jung-Dong, Joo, So Won, Kang, Dae Ryong
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4807540/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27019716
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40557-016-0098-z
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author Yoon, Ji Young
Lee, Jung-Dong
Joo, So Won
Kang, Dae Ryong
author_facet Yoon, Ji Young
Lee, Jung-Dong
Joo, So Won
Kang, Dae Ryong
author_sort Yoon, Ji Young
collection PubMed
description Lung cancer has high mortality and incidence rates. The leading causes of lung cancer are smoking and radon exposure. Indeed, the World Health Organization (WHO) has categorized radon as a carcinogenic substance causing lung cancer. Radon is a natural, radioactive substance; it is an inert gas that mainly exists in soil or rock. The gas decays into radioactive particles called radon progeny that can enter the human body through breathing. Upon entering the body, these radioactive elements release α-rays that affect lung tissue, causing lung cancer upon long-term exposure thereto. Epidemiological studies first outlined a high correlation between the incidence rate of lung cancer and exposure to radon progeny among miners in Europe. Thereafter, data and research on radon exposure and lung cancer incidence in homes have continued to accumulate. Many international studies have reported increases in the risk ratio of lung cancer when indoor radon concentrations inside the home are high. Although research into indoor radon concentrations and lung cancer incidence is actively conducted throughout North America and Europe, similar research is lacking in Korea. Recently, however, studies have begun to accumulate and report important data on indoor radon concentrations across the nation. In this study, we aimed to review domestic and foreign research into indoor radon concentrations and to outline correlations between indoor radon concentrations in homes and lung cancer incidence, as reported in ecological studies thereof. Herein, we noted large differences in radon concentrations between and within individual countries. For Korea, we observed tremendous differences in indoor radon concentrations according to region and year of study, even within the same region. In correlation analysis, lung cancer incidence was not found to be higher in areas with high indoor radon concentrations in Korea. Through our review, we identified a need to implement a greater variety of statistical analyses in research on indoor radon concentrations and lung cancer incidence. Also, we suggest that cohort research or patient-control group research into radon exposure and lung cancer incidence that considers smoking and other factors is warranted.
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spelling pubmed-48075402016-03-25 Indoor radon exposure and lung cancer: a review of ecological studies Yoon, Ji Young Lee, Jung-Dong Joo, So Won Kang, Dae Ryong Ann Occup Environ Med Review Lung cancer has high mortality and incidence rates. The leading causes of lung cancer are smoking and radon exposure. Indeed, the World Health Organization (WHO) has categorized radon as a carcinogenic substance causing lung cancer. Radon is a natural, radioactive substance; it is an inert gas that mainly exists in soil or rock. The gas decays into radioactive particles called radon progeny that can enter the human body through breathing. Upon entering the body, these radioactive elements release α-rays that affect lung tissue, causing lung cancer upon long-term exposure thereto. Epidemiological studies first outlined a high correlation between the incidence rate of lung cancer and exposure to radon progeny among miners in Europe. Thereafter, data and research on radon exposure and lung cancer incidence in homes have continued to accumulate. Many international studies have reported increases in the risk ratio of lung cancer when indoor radon concentrations inside the home are high. Although research into indoor radon concentrations and lung cancer incidence is actively conducted throughout North America and Europe, similar research is lacking in Korea. Recently, however, studies have begun to accumulate and report important data on indoor radon concentrations across the nation. In this study, we aimed to review domestic and foreign research into indoor radon concentrations and to outline correlations between indoor radon concentrations in homes and lung cancer incidence, as reported in ecological studies thereof. Herein, we noted large differences in radon concentrations between and within individual countries. For Korea, we observed tremendous differences in indoor radon concentrations according to region and year of study, even within the same region. In correlation analysis, lung cancer incidence was not found to be higher in areas with high indoor radon concentrations in Korea. Through our review, we identified a need to implement a greater variety of statistical analyses in research on indoor radon concentrations and lung cancer incidence. Also, we suggest that cohort research or patient-control group research into radon exposure and lung cancer incidence that considers smoking and other factors is warranted. BioMed Central 2016-03-25 /pmc/articles/PMC4807540/ /pubmed/27019716 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40557-016-0098-z Text en © Yoon et al. 2016 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Review
Yoon, Ji Young
Lee, Jung-Dong
Joo, So Won
Kang, Dae Ryong
Indoor radon exposure and lung cancer: a review of ecological studies
title Indoor radon exposure and lung cancer: a review of ecological studies
title_full Indoor radon exposure and lung cancer: a review of ecological studies
title_fullStr Indoor radon exposure and lung cancer: a review of ecological studies
title_full_unstemmed Indoor radon exposure and lung cancer: a review of ecological studies
title_short Indoor radon exposure and lung cancer: a review of ecological studies
title_sort indoor radon exposure and lung cancer: a review of ecological studies
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4807540/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27019716
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40557-016-0098-z
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