“The prevalence of thyroid cancer detected by advanced ultrasound techniques in other areas of Japan does not differ meaningfully from that in Fukushima Prefecture,” Takamura wrote in Epidemiology.

, wrote on behalf of 11 members of a WHO expert working group on Fukushima health consequences. Theirs was one of seven letters to Epidemiology published online last month that blasted Tsuda’s methodology and conclusions

The initial round of thyroid screening, started in late 2011, was simply to provide baseline data, as any radiation-induced tumors were not expected to emerge for at least 4 years.

Scientists emphatically disagree. “The evidence suggests that the great majority and perhaps all of the cases so far discovered are not due to radiation,” says Dillwyn Williams, a thyroid cancer specialist at University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom.

In Chernobyl, excesses of thyroid cancer became more remarkable 4 or 5 years after the accident in Belarus and Ukraine, so the observed excess alerts us to prepare for more potential cases within a few years.

n conclusion, among those ages 18 years and younger in 2011 in Fukushima Prefecture, approximately 30-fold excesses in external comparisons and variability in internal comparisons on thyroid cancer detection were observed in Fukushima Prefecture within as few as 4 years after the Fukushima power plant accident. The result was unlikely to be fully explained by the screening effect.

The minimum empirical induction time for thyroid cancer is 2.5 years for adults and 1 year for children, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.31 Therefore, we considered it possible to detect thyroid cancer related to the accident by screening using ultrasound even within the 2011 fiscal year.

Furthermore, according to the data reported by Fukushima Prefecture,27 positive lymph node metastases were observed in 40 of 54 cases (74%) operated at the Fukushima Medical University Hospital.

One concern is that the approximately 30-fold increase observed in the number of thyroid cancer cases in external comparison might be the result of a screening effect.

we observed an approximately 30-fold increase in the number of thyroid cancer cases among children and adolescents using the area/district of residence to provide a surrogate for exposure information (Table 2).

Among the 110 cases, 87 cases were operated by the end of December 2014: 86 cases were histologically confirmed (83 papillary carcinomas and three poorly differentiated carcinomas), and one case was diagnosed as a benign tumor.

ulti-core nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi plant has produced approximately 230 times higher-than-normal thyroid cancers in Fukushima Prefecture

230 times higher than normal thyroid cancers in Fukushima Prefecture

The second report received from Japan proves that the incidence of thyroid cancer is approximately 230 times higher than normal in Fukushima Prefecture

incidence of thyroid cancer is approximately 230 times higher than normal in Fukushima Prefecture

The radiation level in the containment vessel of reactor 2 at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 power plant has reached a maximum of 530 sieverts per hour, the highest since the triple core meltdown in March 2011, Tokyo Electric Power Co. Holdings Inc. said.