The study involved 44 people who were treated for thyroid cancer at Penn State Hershey medical Center between 1974 and 2014. The study was done using medical records and stored tumor samples from former thyroid cancer patients, and didn't directly involve the patients. However, Goldenberg said the research provides an opportunity to better understand the connection between radiation and thyroid cancer. The fifteen whose cancer arose between 1984 and 1996 -- corresponding with the latency period for radiation-induced thyroid cancer -- were assigned to the at-risk group. He said the latency period for radiation induced thyroid cancer is between 7 and 20 years.
New PSU study links 1979 TMI accident to thyroid cancer
Those people developed thyroid cancer on average 5 to 30 years after exposure and about 11 years earlier than the average thyroid cancer case. However, thyroid cancer caused by low-level radiation has a different "mutational signal" than most thyroid cancer, Goldenberg said. Although Pennsylvania has the nation's highest rate of thyroid cancer, most of that cancer has nothing to do with Three Mile Island, Goldenberg said. Goldenberg stops short of saying that the accident "caused" the thyroid cancer, instead saying there's a "possible correlation" between the accident and the cancer. Skip in Skip x Embed x Share CLOSE In March, 1979 a near meltdown happened at the Three Mile Island Nuclear power plant.collected by :Lucy William