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With
the advent of an era of low birthrate and longevity, concern about the safety
of fetuses and children has grown. Programs to protect the health of fetuses
and children and the safety of the environment are being instituted, particularly
in the USA and Europe. This regulation is mainly directed at foodstuffs and
chemicals. This group conducts studies to provide information on the risk of
carcinogenesis due to radiation exposure in the fetal and childhood periods,
for which there is at present insufficient data, and we study the effects of
radiation exposure on life-span using animal experiments.
Major study items
- Estimation of the extent to which carcinogenesis
occurs due to radiation exposure in the organs of fetuses and children whose
radiation sensitivity is high
- Studies on the effects of neutron exposure and charged particle
cancer therapy in children with regard to the risk of subsequent carcinogenesis
- Elucidation of the differences between the mechanisms of radiation-induced
carcinogenesis due to childhood and adulthood exposures (e.g. differences
in mutations of oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes, chromosome aberrations,
and radiation sensitivity of tissue stem cells, which are considered to be
targets of carcinogenesis)
- Clarification of the acute effects of radiation exposure on the
embryo and developing kidney