Radiation-Induced Leukemia

1. Radiation-Induced Leukemia Melissa Whaley East Tennessee State University Research in Allied Health

2. What is Leukemia? • Leukemia is a cancer of the blood or bone marrow characterized by an abnormal proliferation of blood cells, usually leukocytes. • Hall (1976) describes leukemia as a disease characterized by a great excess of abnormal white cells in the blood. • I want to establish that leukemia can be caused due to radiation and explore why/how people contract the disease through radiation exposure.

3. How does irradiation affect leukemia? • The circulating white corpuscles do not themselves divide, but are produced from actively dividing stem cells in the bone marrow and lymph glands. • A change in one of these stem cells flood s the body with abnormal white cells, and this is leukemia (Hall, p. 23). • The exposure to radiation can alter the stem cells and cause the change that floods the body with the white cells. • Leukemia has a latent period of 4-7 years.

4. Where does existing information come from? • Most of the information known about radiation-induced leukemia stems from observing atomic bomb survivors from Nagasaki and Hiroshima • The research conducted by the RERF concluded that of the 74,356 survivors from Hiroshima, there were 102 observed cases of leukemia, whereas of the 25,037 survivors from Nagasaki, there were 42 observed cases of leukemia (p. 537). • Other information has been derived from observing early radiologists, other radiation accident victims, and radiotherapy patients.

5. Conclusions • There is no denying that radiation exposure can lead to the development of leukemia. • The incidence of radiation-induced leukemia in survivors depends on distance and dose received. • Radiation-induced leukemia follows a linear-nonthreshold dose-relationship response.