Occupational radiation exposure and risk of cataract incidence in a cohort of US radiologic technologists

AbstractIt has long been known that relatively high-dose ionising radiation exposure (>  1 Gy) can induce cataract, but there has been no evidence that this occurs at low doses (<  100 mGy). To assess low-dose risk, participants from the US Radiologic Technologists Study, a large, prospective cohort, were followed from date of mailed questionnaire survey completed during 1994–1998 to the earliest of self-reported diagnosis of cataract/cataract surgery, cancer other than non-melanoma skin, or date of last survey (up to end 2014). Cox proportional hazards models with age as timescale were used, adjusted for a priori selected cataract risk factors (diabetes, body mass index, smoking history, race, sex, birth year, cumulative UVB radiant exposure). 12,336 out of 67,246 eligible technologists reported a history of diagnosis of cataract during 832,479 person years of follow-up, and 5509 from 67,709 eligible technologists reported undergoing cataract surgery with 888,420 person years of follow-up. The mean cumulative estimated 5-year lagged eye-lens absorbed dose fr om occupational radiation exposures was 55.7 mGy (interquartile range 23.6–69.0 mGy). Five-year lagged occupational radiation exposure was strongly associated with self-reported cataract, with an excess hazard ratio/mGy of 0.69 × 10−3 (95% CI 0.27  × 10−3 to 1.16  × 10−3,p  <  0.001). Cataract risk remained statistically significant (p  =  0.030) when analysis was restricte...
Source: European Journal of Epidemiology - Category: Epidemiology Source Type: research