City-effects in the atomic bomb survivors data

It was investigated how risk estimates derived from the RERF life span study data sets for cancer incidence and mortality, respectively, differ between the two cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the two sexes. This was done by estimating the excess risk for various age-at-exposure and time-since-exposure groups. The epidemiologically most reliable age group are those aged 20–39 years at the time of exposure. As expected, in this group, the relative risk for females in Hiroshima is higher than that for males; however, in Nagasaki, the relative risk for females is lower than that for males. When comparing the risks in the two cities for the same sex, the risks of cancer incidence and mortality of females exposed in Hiroshima are higher than those in Nagasaki. However, for the males, the risks of cancer incidence in Hiroshima are lower than in Nagasaki, and the risks of cancer mortality of males are very similar between both cities. All differences depend on age-at-exposure and time-since-exposure, and are at the borderline of being statistically significant. The absorbed dose of neutrons, for the same γ-dose, is about three times as high in Hiroshima than in Nagasaki for both sexes. Because of these observed risk differences between both cities, it does not appear to be possible to reliably estimate the relative biological effectiveness of neutrons as compared to that of γ-rays from these epidemiological data sets. No evidence was found in this analysis that the radiation weighting factors w_R presently used for neutrons in radiation protection could severely underestimate the risks for somatic late effects induced by neutrons.