HSE investigation of leukaemia and other cancers in the children of male workers at Sellafield.

  • Great Britain. Health and Safety Executive.
Date:
1993
Catalogue details

Licence: Open Government Licence

Credit: HSE investigation of leukaemia and other cancers in the children of male workers at Sellafield. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Lymphatic leukaemia & NHL (LLNH): Observed and expected numbers with relative risk by residence in Seascale (SEAS). Seascale residence Controls Cases Expected O/E OR 95% Confidence interval No 140 8 3.73 2.15 Yes 39 4 0.28 14.44 6.97 1.98 - 24.59 This Table contains extracts from Table A-12 in Appendix 3. Table 9 All leuRaemias & NHL (LNHL): Observed and expected numbers with relative risk by residence in Seascale (SEAS). Seascale residence Controls Cases Expected O/E OR 95% Confidence interval p= 0.0005 No 140 10 5.39 1.86 Yes 39 6 0.41 14.81 8.67 2.9 - 25.91 This Table contains extracts from Table A-57 in Appendix 3. 82 In Tables 8, 9 and 10, the expected numbers of cases have been estimated on the basis of national incidence rates for the relevant disease groups. The observed to expected ratios therefore indicate the relative frequency of the illnesses compared to the national average. For children born to families resident in Seascale at the time of the birth, the rates of both LLNH and LNHL of the study are some fourteen times the national average(p = 0.00046 and p = 0.000013 respectively). For non-Seascale residents the corresponding rates are around twice the national average but this excess is not statistically significant (p = 0.078 for LLNH and p = 0.10 for LNHL). Part of the excess outside Seascale is due to cases arising in children conceived before the father started work at Sellafield (O/E ratio 3/1.43). For Seascale there was one other cancer (OCAN) case, compared with 0.85 expected. 83 A joint analysis of the effects of cumulative pre-conception external radiation dose (XG) and Seascale residence is given in Table 11 for LLNH. The full details are given in Table A-35 in Appendix 3. There is a clear difference between the association with external radiation dose for Seascale and non-Seascale subjects. The statistical test of