International Pooled Analysis of Uranium Processing Workers
Research type
Research Study
Full title
International Pooled Analysis of Uranium Processing Workers
IRAS ID
276346
Contact name
Richard Haylock
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Nuclear Decommissioning Authority
Duration of Study in the UK
3 years, 2 months, 31 days
Research summary
Nuclear fuel cycle workers are exposed to a variety of hazardous materials. The main steps of the cycle involve uranium exploration and mining, followed by uranium milling, processing and refining in preparation for uranium conversion, enrichment and fuel manufacturing, and completed by exploitation in nuclear reactors and nuclear fuel reprocessing.
To date, epidemiological studies of workers involved in uranium exploration and mining have reported increased risks of lung cancer due to radon decay products (RDP) exposure. Large pooled studies of nuclear reactor workers have identified increased risks of solid cancers, leukaemia, and cardiovascular diseases (CVD) associated with external gamma-ray radiation. However, only a few studies have examined risks of internal alpha radiation in the uranium processing industry and reported inconsistent results, necessitating the need further research.
Investigators representing 16 cohorts of uranium processing workers (from the Canada, USA, France, UK, Russia and Kazakhstan) are in the process of checking and assembling data to conduct a first pooled analysis of long-term health risks of employment in the uranium processing industry. Exposure information on ~100,000 uranium processing workers will be harmonized, which will allow a new set of organ doses from uranium bioassay, RDP and external ionizing radiation exposures to be calculated.
Outcomes of interest will be cancers/non-cancer diseases of uranium-target organs, including lung and bronchi, liver, kidney, bone, brain, and lymphohematopoietic tissues. The greater statistical power of the pooled dataset will allow this collaborative study to have substantially greater ability to describe radon, gamma and long-lived radionuclide-associated risks for this unique group of workers many years after exposure.
Public Health England (PHE) plan to contribute anonymised data concerning 10,000 uranium workers from the British Nuclear Fuels radiation epidemiology cohort to this study. This cohort is managed by PHE for the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority as part of its Radiation Epidemiology Research programme.
REC name
East of England - Cambridge Central Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
20/EE/0034
Date of REC Opinion
6 Feb 2020
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion