Effect of Heterogeneity in Background Incidence on Inference about the Solid-Cancer Radiation Dose Response in Atomic Bomb Survivors.

ABSTRACT: A recent analysis of solid cancer incidence in the Life Span Study of atomic bomb survivors (Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan) found evidence of a nonlinear, upwardly curving radiation dose response among males but not among females. Further analysis of this new and unexpected finding was necessary. We used two approaches to investigate this finding. In one approach, we excluded individual cancer sites or groups of sites from all solid cancers. In the other approach, we used joint analysis to allow for heterogeneity in background-rate parameters across groups of cancers with dissimilar trends in background rates. Exclusion of a few sites led to the disappearance of curvature among males in the remaining collection of solid cancers; some of these influential sites have unique features in their

SUBMITTER: Cologne J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6827345 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature