New case of thyroid cancer diagnosed in Fukushima; brings number to 104

[yuiyoshida]

Source: THE ASAHI SHIMBUN



FUKUSHIMA--An investigation into health problems triggered by the 2011 nuclear disaster here turned up a new case of thyroid cancer in a young person who lived near the stricken plant.

The latest diagnosis brings to 104 the number of people out of the 385,000 or so Fukushima Prefecture residents who were 18 years old or younger at the time of the accident that are confirmed to have thyroid cancer, prefectural authorities said Aug. 31.

However, the prefectural government committee investigating the issue of health problems said that "as of now, it is unlikely for the thyroid cancers found in Fukushima Prefecture to have been caused by the nuclear power plant accident."

The latest check was conducted between April and the end of June.


Read more: http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201509010056

[Chef Eric]

1. That's about 17 times the "normal" frequency.

According to http://www.thyca.org/pediatric/about/, thyroid cancer typically occurs in about 16 out of one million young people.

According to my calculation, 104 out of 385,000 is seventeen times greater than 16 out of one million.

And yet the investigative committee is declaring that it's "unlikely" the accident is causing thyroid cancer?

BULLSHIT.

[FBaggins]

2. Nope. It actually isn't.

According to http://www.thyca.org/pediatric/about/, thyroid cancer typically occurs in about 16 out of one million young people.

Actually... that's the rate of diagnosis... not the rate of occurrence. There's a big difference.

The way that doctors normally identify thyroid cancer in kids is by palpation (that is... by touch). In Japan, the kids are being checked with much better diagnostic precision (ultrasound). So the rate of diagnosis will naturally be much higher.

So far (at least, from what I had seen late last year), none of the thyroid cancers identified in the target group would have been detected by palpation. They weren't large enough.

Just as importantly... when they ran the same diagnostic procedures on thousands of Japanese kids who were not exposed to radiation... the thyroid cancer rate was the same (actually, it was slightly higher). http://www.democraticunderground.com/112738245

This was a well-understood factor long before Fukushima. Multiple medical studies had been done that showed that up to half of the population eventually gets thyroid cancer and it's never detected... because there usually aren't any symptoms.

[CreekDog]

3. So you're trying to say a rate of 270 per million at Fukushima compared to 16 expected...

Last edited Wed Sep 2, 2015, 01:12 AM - Edit history (1)

Is because they are checking more?

Shameless.

[FBaggins]

4. Nope. I'm saying that it's dishonest to pretend that 16 were expected.

It isn't so difficult to understand that different levels of diagnostic sensitivity naturally result in different levels of diagnosis...

... is it?

They ran the same (more sensitive) tests on Japanese youth who were unexposed to Fukushima's radiation and they found the same rate of thyroid abnormalities (actually slightly higher). Why is that confusing?

[hedgehog]

5. I have read that this is a problem in South Korea -

that many people have nodules on their thyroids that could be labelled cancer but that will never be an issue. The problem is that once a person is told they have a "cancerous" nodule, they want that thyroid out. It's analogous to the issue many males face when told they have prostate cancer. Some prostate cancers are killers, some will never cause any problems.

[FBaggins]

6. Exactly right

"We need to recognize that subcentimeter papillary thyroid cancers are probably a normal finding, based on extensive data from autopsy series, showing that 5% to 30% of patients have a small occult papillary thyroid cancer in their thyroid glands when they die of other causes," said lead author Luc G.T. Morris, MD, from the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center's Head and Neck Service in New York.
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/808401

Although some thyroid cancers can spread and cause death, for many people thyroid cancer has also long been recognized to exist in a subclinical form. More than 50 years ago, pathologists reported that thyroid cancer (particularly papillary histology) was a common autopsy finding, despite its never having caused symptoms during a person's life.7 This finding has been replicated in several autopsy studies,8- 11 the most methodical of which was from Harach et al,12 who systematically sectioned 101 thyroid glands in 2- to 3-mm slices. They found that 36% of people not known to have thyroid cancer during their lifetime nonetheless had 1 or more foci of thyroid cancer. However, because many of the cancers identified by Harach et al were small (far smaller than the 2-3 mm between the slices), they reasoned that many were missed by their technique. They went on to calculate that, if sectioned finely enough, virtually every person would be found to harbor a thyroid cancer.
http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=202835