Assessment of Low Doses Radiation Effects Using Tumor Markers Among Palestinian Radiation Workers
Date
2020-02-01
Authors
Dahdol, Areej
Hjouj, Mohammad
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Atlas Publishing
Abstract
Understanding the impact of radiation on occupational workers has been a huge concern; particularly when it comes to cancer, which is considered a stochastic effect from radiation. This paper aims at investigating the effects of low radiation doses on tumor markers tests among Radiation Workers (RWs). It also aims at demonstrating the effect of independent variables, such exposed dose, smoking status, and the type of work on tumor markers. The researchers reviewed the collected database of tumor marker tests in four Governmental Hospitals between the period (2013- 2019) in order to trace the patterns of tumor marker over the years. The exposed dose record was taken from the Energy Department. Additionally, a questionnaire was distributed to acquire correlated independent variables with tumor markers records and 78 RWs participated in this study. Results indicated that after several years of tracing tumor markers, they all tend to increase in a normal range. Significantly, the Carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) has increased by approximately 57% in RWs. Moreover, the smoking workers have a statistically significant change in CEA. Finally, the study has not shown any relationship between the radiation doses and tumor markers. In conclusion, to the best of the researchers’ knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the correlated tumor markers with low radiation doses among occupational worker. The researchers believe that these findings will contribute to ‘gap-filling’ in low dose effects, and demonstrate the importance of laboratory medical tests in prediction of low doses effect. However, further investigations are needed in order to achieve more accurate results.
Description
Keywords
Low dose , Radiation workers , Tumor markers , Cancer , Stochastic effects , Retrospective