Twenty-eight possible cases of multiple myeloma were identified from two
lists of veterans who said they had served in Hiroshima or Nagasaki.
compiled one of the lists as part of its NTPR program.
DNA
The other list was
provided by the National Association of Atomic Veterans (NAAV), which had
polled its membership of about 2,000.
The DNA list contained 687 names, and
the NAAV list approximately 500 names.
The NTPR Service teams and participating NAS staff members screened
military records of the 28 veterans possibly having multiple myeloma.
They
eliminated nine of the veterans because their records did not confirm military
assignments to Hiroshima or Nagasaki.
Clinical records were sought from the 19 remaining cases.
The veteran
or, if deceased, his next-of-kin was asked for permission to obtain his
medical records (including X-rays and microscope slides) from the appropriate
medical authority.
Six more cases were eliminated,
five of them because the
veterans or next-of-kin did not respond to NAS inquiries and one because a
physician did not respond to the request for medical records.
Four cases were
eliminated from the remaining 13 when further military record searches
revealed that two of the personnel had not been assigned to Hiroshima or
Nagasaki and the medical records of the other two made no reference to
multiple myeloma.
The panel confirmed nine cases of multiple myeloma among the Hiroshima/
Nagasaki veterans.
Five of the cases had been assigned to the Nagasaki
occupation; the other four were associated with Hiroshima.
All cases were
diagnosed between the ages of 51 and 61, the time when the disease normally
appears.
On the basis of multiple myeloma incidence rates reported by the National
Cancer Institute and assuming that at least 20,000 men were assigned to
occupation duty at Nagasaki, the panel calculated that 9.5 cases of the
disease would be expected by 1980 if all of the troops had been between the
ages of 15 to 19 years at the time of the occupation.
At least 18.2 cases
would be expected if the ages had been between 20 and 24, and 29.2 cases would
be expected if the ages had been between 25 and 29 in 1945.
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Similar figures