The German Thorotrast Cohort Study: a review and how to get access to the data

It is well known that exposures like those from (226)Ra, (224)Ra and Thorotrast(®) injections increase the risk of neoplasia in bone marrow and liver. The thorium-based radioactive contrast agent Thorotrast(®) was introduced in 1929 and applied worldwide until the 1950s, especially in angiography and arteriography. Due to the extremely long half-life of several hundred years and the life-long retention of the thorium dioxide particles in the human body, patients suffer lifetime internal exposure. The health effects from the incorporated thorium were investigated in a few cohort studies with a German study being the largest among them. This retrospective cohort study was set up in 1968 with a follow-up until 2004. The study comprises 2326 Thorotrast patients and 1890 patients of a matched control group. For those being alive at the start of the study in 1968 follow-up was done by clinical examinations on a biannual basis. For the others, causes of death were collected in various ways. Additionally, clinical, radiological and biophysical studies of patients were conducted and large efforts were made to best estimate the radiation doses associated with incorporation of the Thorotrast. The aim of this paper is to describe the cohort, important results and some open questions. The data from the German Thorotrast Study are available to other interested researchers. Information can be found at http://storedb.org .