| Project of the Month - August 2011

SOLO - Epidemiological Studies of Exposed Southern Urals Populations

SOLO is a four year integrated, multi-disciplinary project to investigate the risks of radiation exposure. It involves dosimetrists, operational health physicists, statisticians and epidemiologists from nine institutions in the EU, Russian Federation and the USA. The project will study the health of two key radiation exposed populations from the Southern Urals of the Russian Federation. The aim is to derive better estimates of the risks of cancer and some non-cancer diseases from long term exposure to ionising radiation.

Project information

Website address: WWW.SOLO-FP7.EU

Project type (funding instrument): Large scale integrated collaborative project

Project start date: 01/03/2010     
Duration: 48 months

Total budget: EUR 9m
EC contribution: EUR 5m

EC project officer:
André Jouve
European Commission
Directorate-General for Research
Directorate Energy (Euratom)
Unit J.2 – Fission
CDMA 01/78
B-1049 Brussels
e-mail: Andre.Jouve@ec.europa.eu

Coordinator: 
Dr John Harrison
Health Protection Agency
Chilton, Didcot,
Oxon, OX11 0RQ, UK
phone: +441235 831600
fax: +441235 833891
e-mail:  John.Harrison@HPA.ORG.UK

Partners

  1. Health Protection Agency (Coordinator), HPA, United Kingdom
  2. Southern Urals Biophysics Institute, SUBI, Russian Federation
  3. Urals Research Centre for Radiation Medicine, URCRM, Russian Federation
  4. Helmholtz Zentrum Muenchen - National Centre for Environmental Health GmbH, HMGU, Germany
  5. University of Central Lancashire, UCLan, United Kingdom
  6. International Centre for Cancer Research, IARC, France
  7. Istituto Superiore di Sanità, ISS, Italy
  8. Leiden University Medical Centre, LUMC, The Netherlands
  9. University of Florida, U, United States of America

Nature and scope of the project

The Mayak nuclear facility situated in the Chelyabinsk region of the Russian Federation began operating in 1948 to produce plutonium for the Soviet atomic weapons program. Workers at the plant, who lived in the nearby city of Ozyorsk, were exposed to ionising radiation often at high levels over many years. Also exposed were residents of villages along the Techa river which flows close to the plant and into which radioactive waste was discharged. Both groups were also exposed as a result of an accident at Mayak in 1957.

 1) The Russian Federation showing the Chelyabinsk region
  larger image       		2) Mayak and Ozyorsk also showing the Techa river
  larger image
  
Current and retired Mayak workers, who are still living in Ozyorsk, have annual medicals in which smoking and alcohol consumption information is recorded. This makes them particularly valuable for studying the effects of radiation on diseases that are affected by smoking and alcohol consumption, such as cancer and circulatory diseases.

The project aims are to improve the estimates of the risks of long-term health effects associated with protracted external and internal low dose radiation exposures, through the study of a group of 22,000 current and ex Mayak workers and a sub-group of the 43,000 offspring of the local population who lived near the Techa River. Both of these groups were set up under pre-vious projects.

Activities

  1. To develop and implement a strategy for verifying the methods used to quantify the radiation doses received by the study subjects.  Electron Paramagnetic Resonance and Fluorescence In Situ Hybridisation techniques will developed to fulfil this role.
  2. To perform epidemiological studies of both mortality and incidence of cancer and of respiratory and circulatory diseases among the Mayak workers. These analyses in particular will make use of the smoking and alcohol consumption data that is uniquely available for this worker group.
  3. To develop a joint protocol for the measurement of doses to Mayak workers exposed internally to plutonium and a similar group of workers from the Sellafield nuclear plant in the UK. Then, subject to a feasibility study, to perform an epidemiological study of cancer and non-cancer diseases in these two groups to compare and contrast the findings for the Mayak and Sellafield workers.
  4. Subject to a feasibility study, to perform an epidemiological study of cancer in a group of children born to women from either of the Mayak and Techa river groups who were exposed to radiation while pregnant (approximately 8000 children in total).

Expected results

It is difficult to assess the risk from radiation exposure for diseases linked to smoking or alcohol consumption in groups where this information is not available. The Mayak worker group provide a rare opportunity to study these diseases in a population for which smoking and alcohol consumption has been recorded for many years. Statistical methods will be used to estimate radiation risks for a range of smoking and alcohol related cancers. Thus, radiation risks will be derived, for specified cancers, from which the effects of smoking and alcohol will be removed. These risks will then be compared to those currently proposed by international bodies, such as the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP), so as to assess the validity of the ICRP risk estimates which are used around the world.

Interest in the risks from radiation exposure of non-cancer diseases such as respiratory and circulatory diseases has been growing following the publication of raised risks, among the Japanese atomic bomb survivors. Smoking and alcohol adjusted risk estimates based on the group of Mayak workers will be calculated to provide another good quality source of information about non-cancer risks from radiation.

The analysis of cancers in the children of women in the Techa river group and the Mayak worker group will provide a source of new source of good quality information about the risks from exposure in utero.

If the comparison of plutonium exposed Sellafield and Mayak workers provides consistent findings in both groups, then this will provide good evidence that the risks calculated are reliable. This is relevant to providing good advice to current workers who receive intakes of plutonium.

Societal impact

The project will provide valuable information in improving the safety of radiation workers, their offspring and the public in general by better quantifying the risks of radiation exposure.

Information about important public events

No public events are planned for this project. However, a project website providing information on the project is available at www.solo-fp7.eu and will be updated throughout the period of SOLO.