Draft Report for Consultation: ICRP Statement on Radon AND Lung cancer risk from radon and progeny

At its meeting in Porto in November 2009 ICRP approved a Statement on Radon. The intention is to publish this Statement in the Annals of the ICRP with an accompanying report on lung cancer risk from radon and progeny. A draft of this report is now available (the draft abstract is below), and ICRP is seeking feedback on both the Statement and the report.

ICRP welcomes comments from individuals or groups. The Statement and draft report can be downloaded, and comments submitted, through the ICRP consultation page.
Comments must be submitted no later than September 30, 2010.

Draft Abstract

This report reviews recent epidemiological studies of lung cancer risk linked to exposure to radon and its progeny. It concentrates on the results from pooled case-control studies of residential exposures and cohorts of underground miners exposed to low levels of radon and radon progeny. Consistent with the approach used in ICRP Publication 65 (1993), recent miner data are used to recommend a revised detriment-adjusted nominal risk coefficient of 5 10-4 per WLM (14 10-5 per mJ h m-3), replacing the ICRP Publication 65 value of 2.8 10-4 per WLM (8 10-5 per mJ h m-3). Furthermore, pooled analyses of epidemiological studies of lung cancer risk from residential exposures demonstrate a statistically significant increase per unit of exposure below average annual concentrations of about 200 Bq m-3. The risk estimates derived from these pooled analysis are consistent with those from underground miners and are sufficiently robust to enable protection of the public to be now based on residential concentration levels. However, for occupational protection purposes, dose estimates are required to demonstrate compliance with limits and constraints. Dose estimates also allow comparisons between various sources of public exposure. ICRP Publication 65 recommended that doses from radon and its progeny should be calculated using a dose conversion convention based on miner epidemiological studies. ICRP now proposes to treat radon and radon progeny in the same way as other radionuclides and will publish dose coefficients calculated using dosimetric models for use within the ICRP system of protection.