Funded Research with International Components

Many large Applied Research Program (ARP) funded research centers and cooperative agreements involve international collaborations.

Improving Thyroid Doses from Fallout Exposure in Kazakhstan

The US National Cancer Institute (NCI), through the Radiation Epidemiology Branch (REB), Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, is involved in a study of radiation exposure and thyroid disease among individuals in Kazakhstan exposed during childhood to radioactive fallout from nuclear tests conducted by the Soviet Union at the Semipalatinsk Nuclear Test Site (SNTS) between 1949 and 1962. High thyroid doses to this population present a unique opportunity to improve estimates of radiation dose as a risk factor for thyroid disease in a single population. REB initiated a field study to acquire new data to improve estimates of internal and external radiation dose and thereby refine dose-response estimates. ARP staff and DCEG collaborators conducted a pilot study in March 2007 to ascertain the feasibility of recall of specific distant past events by elders in the communities. Results from this pilot will inform further study of this topic.

Cancer Incidence and Mortality in Blood Donors and Recipients Study

Between 2002 and 2006, a medical record-linkage study was conducted in Sweden and Denmark to assess cancer incidence and mortality in blood donors and recipients. ARP staff developed and monitored the Cancer Incidence and Mortality in Blood Donors and Recipients: A Population-Based Record Linkage Study in response to a US Public Health Service subcommittee request for data about risk of transmission of circulating cancer cells from donors to recipients. ARP awarded a contract to conduct this study to the Karolinska Institute in Sweden and included a subcontract to the Statens Serum Institute in Denmark.

Finland-US ATBC Cancer Prevention Study and Cohort Follow-Up

The NCI and the National Public Health Institute in Helsinki, Finland have been collaborating since 1982 on a series of cancer prevention studies. The main study, conducted between 1985 and 1993, was the Alpha-Tocopherol and Beta-Carotene Finland-US Cancer Prevention Study (ATBC). This trial randomized Finnish male smokers to interventions with alpha-tocopherol, beta-carotene, both alpha-tocopherol and beta-carotene, or a placebo. The study found that smokers taking beta-carotene actually had more lung cancers than those who were not given beta-carotene and that smokers taking alpha-tocopherol had fewer prostate cancers. Since 1993, study participants have been monitored and recruited into several ancillary studies. ARP staff have collaborated with DCEG to investigate several topics, including the association of carotenoid intake and retinoid intake with incident prostate cancer and the association of carotenoid intake with head and neck cancers. Papers have been published and are in preparation. Using data from the ATBC project, ARP also has collaborated on an ancillary study with the European Union Consortium project (DIETSCAN) to develop methods to measure common dietary patterns in four European cohorts (Finland, Netherlands, Italy, and Sweden) and to study the dietary patterns' associations with cancer.