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.
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