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Written By: Admin | Updated : March 1, 2013 12:05 PM IST
In a report released in Geneva on Thursday, the World Health Organization says that infants in Japan's Fukushima region are at greater risk of developing cancer after the March 2011 accident at the Dai-Ichi nuclear power plant. People living near Dai-Ichi were exposed to radiation when the plant suffered severe damage from the magnitude-9.0 earthquake and ensuing tsunami that struck north eastern Japan on March 11, 2011.
Inhabitants of the worst-affected area who were infants at the time of exposure face additional risks of developing cancer in comparison with Fukushima residents who lived farther from the plant and with people in other parts of Japan, the WHO experts concluded. For girls in the target area, the chances of having thyroid cancer over the course of their lifetimes are 70 percent greater, while the boys face a 7 percent higher risk of leukemia, the report says. Japanese girls in general have a 0.75 percent probability of thyroid cancer and those in the hardest-hit part of Fukushima must contend with an additional risk of 0.5 percent, the researchers said.
'Outside the geographical areas most-affected by radiation, even in locations within Fukushima prefecture, the predicted risks remain low, and no observable increases in cancer above natural variation in baseline rates are anticipated,' the WHO said.
Thyroid cancer is a cancer of the thyroid gland which is located inside the lower part of the front of the neck. Exposure to ionizing radiation is one of the known risk factors for the development of thyroid cancer and the cancer often develops decades after the exposure has occurred. After the atomic bomb explosion in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it was noted that the incidence of thyroid cancer among the survivors increased by 200 times compared to the population which was not exposed to the effects of the bombing. Surgery is most common treatment for thyroid cancer in which the entire thyroid gland is usually removed. Radiotherapy may also be used.
Even today, after over six decades, the survivors of the bomb, known in Japan as 'hibakusha', continue to be regularly diagnosed with not only cancer of the thyroid, but also with leukaemia, lymphoma and other cancers. Leukaemia, commonly called 'blood cancer', is a cancer in which there is uncontrolled and/or abnormal growth of white blood cells. Acute leukaemia is an aggressive cancer which mostly affects children. Exposure to high levels of radiation is one of the high risk factors for leukaemia. Acute leukaemia needs quick and aggressive treatment. The most effective method of treating leukaemia is chemotherapy. Regular blood transfusions may be needed. Radiotherapy is used to treat advanced cases of acute leukaemiathat have spread to the nervous system and/or brain.
Read:Leukaemia the blood cancer
With inputs from IANS
