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Abstract
People are generally exposed to radiation from natural sources. Radon is the most important radiation source among natural sources. Radon is a naturally occurring, radioactive noble gas that is odorless and tasteless. Radon is normally found at very low levels in outdoor air and in drinking water from rivers and lakes but higher levels in indoor air in homes, schools, and office buildings, and in well water. When radon undergoes radioactive decay, it expels high-energy alpha particles. The alpha particle radiation dose from long-term exposure increases the chance of developing lung cancer. Radon is the second most important cause of lung cancer after smoking. There is no known threshold concentration below which radon exposure presents no risk. Even low concentrations of radon can result in a small increase in the risk of lung cancer. No study of the radon exposure-lung cancer association has been performed in Korea. What is needed is a large-scale prospective study of the association between residential radon exposure and lung cancer. The cumulative indoor radon exposure is an important environmental health hazard (carcinogen).
Figures and Tables
Figure 1
Sources and distribution of a average radiation exposure to the world population (From World Health Organization. Ionizing radiation in our environment [Internet]. Geneva: World Health Organization) [1].
Figure 2
Comparison with regional indoor radon concentration (A), surface soil radon concentration (B) and lung cancer mortality (C) ([A,B] From National Institute of Environmental Research. National radon survey in Korea. Incheon: National Institute of Environmental Research; 2009 [3]. [C] From Statistics Korea. Annual report on cause of death statistics. Daejeon: Statistics Korea; 2010 [11]).
Table 1
Indoor radon concentrations in OECD countries
From United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation. Sources and effects of ionizing radiation: UNSCEAR 2000 report to the General Assembly, with scientific annexes. New York: United Nations; 2000 [2].
OECD, Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development; NA, not available.
Table 2
Summary of risks of lung cancer from indoor radon based on international pooling studies that have combined individual data from a number of case-control studies and on studies of radon exposed miners
From World Health Organization. WHO handbook on indoor radon: a public health perspective [Internet]. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2009 [7].
a)Considering radon concentrations during the period starting 35 years before and ending 5 years before the date of diagnosis for cases of lung cancer, or a comparable date for controls.
b)Adjusting for year-to-year random variability in indoor radon concentration
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