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hormone at puberty and the appearance of thyroid nodules sincein 10 children
‘thyroid nodules appeared near the expected or actual time of puberty.
In
5 other children (2 males and 3 females) in this group the nodules appeared
“l-to 3 years after puberty and in the females were associated with pregnancies,
In evaluating the influence of puberty and pregnancy it should be pointed out
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that the latent period between exposure and the deve lopment of thyroid
abnormalities was fairly constant in all of these children, varying between
10 and 13 years, so that the above findings may have been fortuitous.
In the
‘
4 women who developed carcinoma of the thyroid the possible influence of the
stress of pregnancy must be considered since all had multiple pregnancies in
.
the years preceding the development of lesions f
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Sex incidence.
.
The- ratio of benign thyroid lesions occurring in the Rongelap population
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was females 1.3 to males 1.0.
The findings may be mis leading since all of the
females in the group exposed at less than 10 years of age had lesions whereas
2 males in the group did not.
The fact that all 3 malignant lesions of the
thyroid were in females is consistent with reported statistics. showing
d
preponderance of such lesions in females».
DISCUSSION
At the time of appearance of the first malignant thyroid lesion in the
more heavily exposed Rongelap group several years ago numerous benign
adenomatous thyroid nodules had appeared which were suspected of being
related to the radiation exposure.
However such an etiological relationship
.
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| single isolated malignant lesion- found at that time was speculative.
; to the
.
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With the findings of 2 additional individuals with thyroid carcinoma in
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DOE ARCHIVES
SB?
hGH