Life Span Study Report 4
Technical Report No. 14-64
JNIH–ABCC Life Span Study, Hiroshima-Nagasaki. Report 4. Mortality in A-bomb survivors by age cohorts 1950-59
Ishida M, Jablon S
Editor’s note:
No journal article was published.
Summary
The mortality experience of a cohort of approximately 100,000 persons selected from survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings and a comparison of persons who were not in the cities at the time of bombing (ATB) was studied for the period 1 October 1950-30 September 1959.
The main findings were:
There is evidence that the survival among those who were located within 1400 m from the hypocenter was lower than that for persons located at 1400-9999 m or for those not in the cities ATB.
For age group 0-19 ATB, the mortality rates decreased regularly with increasing distance out to 2000 m, and increased regularly with increasing estimated radiation dose. However, such relations were not observed in other age groups.
The incidence of signs of acute radiation injury was studied in detail by city, sex, and three major symptoms–epilation, hemorrhage and oropharyngeal lesions. The incidence of symptoms increased markedly with increase of dose. The highest incidence for fixed dose was observed in the 20-39 age groups in both sexes.
Among those who were under age 40 ATB, mortality rates were higher in those who reported acute radiation injury than in those who denied it.
A comparison of mortality rates between non- or lightly shielded survivors and those heavily shielded revealed no statistically significant difference.
No difference in mortality was seen between those reporting and those not reporting burns from the bombing.
As to causes of death, leukemia mortality was very high at all ages among the survivors within 1400 m. In the same group, the mortality rate from malignant neoplasms excluding leukemia was significantly high in Hiroshima females aged 40-59 ATB and tuberculosis mortality in Hiroshima males was significantly high in age groups 20-39 and 40-59 ATB.
Editor’s note:
The following components of this report contain data on communicable disease frequencies, allergies, malignancies, and many other symptoms that may be of interest from a public health standpoint.
List of Tables
- Age cohort mortality in 1950 and 1955
- Proportion of survivors 1950-1959 by distance
- Results of rank test on age-sex specific groups
- Mortality 1950-1959 among survivors <1200 m by symptom category
- Mortality 1950-1959 among survivors <1200 m by shielding category
- Mortality 1950-1959 among survivors <1400 m and 1400 m+ in relation to burns
- Cumulative mortality 1950-1959, selected causes
List of Figures
- Mortality 1950-1959
- Mortality proper plus reserve sample
- Percent with epilation
- Percent with hemorrhage
- Percent with oropharyngeal lesions
- Percent with epilation, hemorrhage, oropharyngeal lesions
- Mortality rate, leukemia
- Mortality rate, malignant neoplasms
- Mortality rate, tuberculosis