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Prevalence of Goiter and Urinary Iodine Excretion Levels in Children Around Chernobyl¹

The First Department of Internal Medicine (K.A., N.Y., M.I., S.N.), and Department of Preventive Medicine, Atomic Disease Institute (S.Y., H.N.), Nagasaki University School of Medicine, Nagasaki 852, Japan; Department of Epidemiology, Radiation Effects Research Foundation (Y.S.), Nagasaki 850, Japan; and International Radiation Information Center, Research Institute for Radiation Biology and Medicine, Hiroshima University (M.H.), 1–2-3 Kasumi, Minami-ku, Hiroshima 734, Japan

Address all correspondence and requests for reprints to: Kiyoto Ashizawa, The First Department of Internal Medicine, Nagasaki University School of Medicine, Sakamoto 1–7-1, Nagasaki 852, Japan.

The prevalence of goiter among children living in areas affected by the Chernobyl accident was investigated by analysis of data on approximately 120,000 children examined at five medical diagnostic centers in Belarus, Russia, and the Ukraine. Examinations of thyroid gland were conducted with an arch-automatic ultrasonographic instrument at the five centers under the same protocol. The diagnosis of goiter was established when the thyroid volume exceeded a limit calculated from age, height, and body weight of a child. A considerable variation by region was noted in the prevalence of goiter. Highest in the Kiev region, the prevalence in the five regions was 54% in Kiev, 38% in the Zhitomir regions of the Ukraine, 18% in Gomel, 22% in the Mogilev regions of Belarus, and 41% in the Bryansk region of Russia. Urinary iodine content was measured in approximately 5700 children, and an endemic iodine deficient zone was confirmed in the Bryansk, Kiev, and Zhitomir regions. A significant negative correlation was observed between the prevalence of goiter and the median level of urinary iodine content (Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient was -0.35, P = 0.025).