Overview of NCRP Report No. 186: Approaches for Integrating Information from Radiation Biology and Epidemiology to Enhance Low-Dose Health Risk Assessment

Speaker
R. Julian Preston

Description
NCRP Report No. 186, Approaches for Integrating Information from Radiation Biology and Epidemiology to Enhance Low-Dose Health Risk Assessment, derives from previous NCRP reports and commentaries that provide the case for integrating data from radiation biology studies (available and proposed) with epidemiological studies (also available and proposed) to develop biologically-based dose response (BBDR) models. The Report proposes for such models to utilize parameters developed from an adverse outcome pathways (AOP), key events (KE) approach for characterizing radiation induced cancers and circulatory disease (as the example for a noncancer outcome). The review discusses the current state of knowledge of mechanisms of carcinogenesis, with an emphasis on radiation-induced cancers, and a similar discussion for circulatory disease. The types of the various informative BBDR models are presented along with a proposed generalized BBDR model for cancer and a more speculative one for circulatory disease. The way forward is presented in a comprehensive discussion of the research needs to address the goal of enhancing health risk assessment of exposures to low doses of radiation. The use of an AOP/KE approach for developing a mechanistic framework for BBDR models of radiation-induced cancer and circulatory disease is considered to be a viable one based upon current knowledge of the mechanisms of formation of these adverse health outcomes and the available technical capabilities and computational advances. The way forward for enhancing low-dose radiation risk estimates will require there to be a tight integration of epidemiology data and radiation biology information to meet the goals of relevance and sensitivity of the adverse health outcomes required for overall health risk assessment at low doses and dose rates. (This presentation does not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.)

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