TY - JOUR
T1 - Occupational radiation exposure and glaucoma and macular degeneration in the US radiologic technologists
AU - Little, Mark P.
AU - Kitahara, Cari M.
AU - Cahoon, Elizabeth K.
AU - Bernier, Marie Odile
AU - Velazquez-Kronen, Raquel
AU - Doody, Michele M.
AU - Borrego, David
AU - Miller, Jeremy S.
AU - Alexander, Bruce H
AU - Simon, Steven L.
AU - Preston, Dale L.
AU - Meyer, Craig
AU - Linet, Martha S.
AU - Hamada, Nobuyuki
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 The Author(s).
PY - 2018/12/1
Y1 - 2018/12/1
N2 - There are well-documented associations of glaucoma with high-dose radiation exposure, but only a single study suggesting risk of glaucoma, and less conclusively macular degeneration, associated with moderate-dose exposure. We assessed risk of glaucoma and macular degeneration associated with occupational eye-lens radiation dose, using participants from the US Radiologic Technologists Study, followed from the date of surveys in 1994-1998, 2003-2005 to the earliest of diagnosis of glaucoma or macular degeneration, cancer other than non-melanoma skin cancer, or date of last survey (2012-2014). We excluded those with baseline disease or previous radiotherapy history. Cox proportional hazards models with age as timescale were used. There were 1631 cases of newly self-reported doctor-diagnosed cases of glaucoma and 1331 of macular degeneration among 69,568 and 69,969 eligible subjects, respectively. Estimated mean cumulative eye-lens absorbed dose from occupational radiation exposures was 0.058 Gy. The excess relative risk/Gy for glaucoma was -0.57 (95% CI -1.46, 0.60, p = 0.304) and for macular degeneration was 0.32 (95% CI -0.32, 1.27, p = 0.381), suggesting that there is no appreciable risk for either endpoint associated with low-dose and low dose-rate radiation exposure. Since this is the first examination of glaucoma and macular degeneration associated with low-dose radiation exposure, this result needs to be replicated in other low-dose studies.
AB - There are well-documented associations of glaucoma with high-dose radiation exposure, but only a single study suggesting risk of glaucoma, and less conclusively macular degeneration, associated with moderate-dose exposure. We assessed risk of glaucoma and macular degeneration associated with occupational eye-lens radiation dose, using participants from the US Radiologic Technologists Study, followed from the date of surveys in 1994-1998, 2003-2005 to the earliest of diagnosis of glaucoma or macular degeneration, cancer other than non-melanoma skin cancer, or date of last survey (2012-2014). We excluded those with baseline disease or previous radiotherapy history. Cox proportional hazards models with age as timescale were used. There were 1631 cases of newly self-reported doctor-diagnosed cases of glaucoma and 1331 of macular degeneration among 69,568 and 69,969 eligible subjects, respectively. Estimated mean cumulative eye-lens absorbed dose from occupational radiation exposures was 0.058 Gy. The excess relative risk/Gy for glaucoma was -0.57 (95% CI -1.46, 0.60, p = 0.304) and for macular degeneration was 0.32 (95% CI -0.32, 1.27, p = 0.381), suggesting that there is no appreciable risk for either endpoint associated with low-dose and low dose-rate radiation exposure. Since this is the first examination of glaucoma and macular degeneration associated with low-dose radiation exposure, this result needs to be replicated in other low-dose studies.
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U2 - 10.1038/s41598-018-28620-6
DO - 10.1038/s41598-018-28620-6
M3 - Article
C2 - 29992993
AN - SCOPUS:85049811494
SN - 2045-2322
VL - 8
JO - Scientific reports
JF - Scientific reports
IS - 1
M1 - 10481
ER -