Cancer: Relation of Prenatal Radiation to Development of the Disease in Childhood

Abstract

Experimental evidence indicating a linear response and the absence of a threshold for the development of childhood cancer and leukemia at total doses below 1 roentgen is contained in recent studies of prenatal diagnostic x-ray exposure. Implications for the nature of the carcinogenic mechanism in the human organism are discussed, with emphasis on the possible effects of the ionizing radiation from iodine-131 and other short-lived isotopes.