Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 13, 2026

Expedited Radiation Biodosimetry by Automated Dicentric Chromosome Identification (ADCI) and Dose Estimation
Published on: September 4, 2017
Uncertainties in individual doses in a case-control study of thyroid cancer after the Chernobyl accident
V Drozdovitch1, E Maceika, V Khrouch
1International Agency for Research on Cancer, 150 cours Albert-Thomas, 69372 Lyon Cedex 08, France. drozdovv@mail.nih.gov
Abstract:
Individual radiation doses to the thyroid were reconstructed for 2239 subjects of a case-control study of thyroid cancer among young people that was carried out in regions of Belarus and Russia contaminated by radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl accident. Although the process of dose reconstruction provides a point estimate of each subject's dose, it is obvious that there is uncertainty associated with these dose calculations. The following main sources of uncertainty in the estimated individual doses were identified: (1) shared and unshared errors associated with parameters of the dosimetry model; and (2) unshared errors that are associated with the variability, reliability and ability of information from the personal interviews. Besides setting up proper distributions for the parameters of the dosimetry model, inter-individual correlations were also defined to take into account shared errors. By the application of Monte Carlo simulations, a set of approximately log-normally distributed thyroid doses was obtained for each subject; the geometric standard deviations of the distributions are found to vary among individuals from 1.7 to 3.7.
Related Concept Videos
Biological Effects of Radiation
Types of Biopharmaceutical Studies: Controlled and Non-Controlled Approaches
Non-controlled studies, commonly employed for initial exploration, lack a control group, rendering them susceptible to biases and external influences. In contrast, controlled...
Dosage Regimen: Individualization
Toxicity Testing in Animals
Propagation of Uncertainty from Systematic Error
Bioavailability Study Design: Single Versus Multiple Dose Studies