RPI takes part in a large-scale assessment of the radiation situation in more than 2,200 towns that were home to more than 3.5 million people. This task was complicated by a variety of environmental and social conditions. As part of this activity, numerous measurements of cesium and strontium content in the body were performed for the population of Ukraine, and a set of environmental dosimetric models was developed. Appropriate measures for radiation protection of the population and rehabilitation of the territories of Ukraine were carried out. There was developed and implemented a system of thyroid dose reconstruction of the entire population of Ukraine.
RPI implements dosimetric and statistical support of different studies relating to health effects from radiation exposure as a result of the Chornobyl accident. In the last several years RPI has joined and participates in the following projects:
- EU Contract 211712 “CTB-The Chornobyl Tissue Bank-Coordinating International Research on Radiation Induced Thyroid Cancer”, 2009–present.
The CTB includes material from all patients with thyroid carcinomas and cellular follicular adenomas from the contaminated regions of Ukraine and the Russian Federation who were born after 26th April 1967 and were operated after 1998. The purpose of the project is to ensure that specimens of thyroid cancer are properly described and sampled and that materials (frozen tissue, fixed tissue sections, extracted DNA/RNA, and blood samples), are available for appropriate research studies. At present doses for more than 3,000 samples have been calculated by the RPI specialists and provided to V.P. Komisarenko Institute of Endocrinology and Metabolism of the NAMS of Ukraine, and Coordinating Centre at Imperial College London together with the data about patients. The study is supported by the EC, the WHO, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Sasakawa Memorial Health Foundation (SMHF), Japan.
- Gene-Rad-Interact Project “Gene-Radiation Interaction: Their Influence On Pre-Menopausal Breast Cancer Risk After Chornobyl”, 2002–present
An ecological study has been conducted to describe the spatial and temporal trends in breast cancer incidence in the most contaminated regions of Belarus and Ukraine and to evaluate to what extent the increases seen since 1986 are related to radiation exposure from the Chornobyl accident. During the period 1997–2001, in the most contaminated districts (average cumulative dose of 40.0 mSv or more) compared with the least contaminated districts relative risks were calculated as 2.24 (95% CI: 1.51–3.32) in Belarus and 1.78 (95% CI: 1.08–2.93) in Ukraine. The study was resumed in 2017 on a voluntary basis. The study has been conducting together with the International Agency for Research on Cancer of WHO, Belarusian Cancer Registry, and the National Cancer Registry of Ukraine.
- Ukrainian-American Scientific Project “Study of Cancer and other Thyroid Diseases in Ukraine as a Consequence of the Chornobyl Accident”, 1996–present
А cohort study of children and adolescents exposed to Chornobyl fallout in Ukraine was initiated to better understand the long-term health effects of exposure to radioactive iodines. All 13,204 cohort members were subjected to at least one direct thyroid measurement between 30 April and 30 June 1986 and resided at the time of the accident in the most radioactively contaminated territories of Kyiv, Zhytomyr, or Chernihiv regions of Ukraine. The RPI specialists took part in thyroid doses reconstruction for cohort members and in the dose-responsible analysis. The thyroid doses range from 0.35 mGy to 42 Gy, with 95% of the doses between 1 mGy and 4.2 Gy, an arithmetic mean of 0.65 Gy, and a geometric mean of 0.19 Gy. The study has been conducted together with National Research Center for Radiation Medicine of the NAMS of Ukraine, Institute for Safety Problems of NNP of the NAS of Ukraine, National Cancer Institute (NCI) of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), V.P. Komisarenko Institute of Endocrinology and Metabolism of the NAMS of Ukraine.