Thyroid Dose and Risk Calculator for Nuclear Weapons Fallout for the US Population Report - Summary Report

Information Used In Lifetime Risk Calculation

Estimated thyroid dose from exposure to fallout

The best estimate of the thyroid dose you received is 45 mGy.

However, no person's dose can be known with complete certainty. It is unlikely that your dose was lower than 9.3 mGy or higher than 110 mGy (this is a 90 percent uncertainty range).

Your risk of developing thyroid cancer (assuming you have not been diagnosed with this disease)

The best estimate of your risk of developing thyroid cancer from today forward is 1.2 chances in 1,000.

By comparison, if you had not been exposed to fallout from nuclear weapons testing, your risk would be 0.9 chances in 1,000.

What does this risk mean?

Your risk estimate of 1.2 chances in 1,000 means that we expect about 1 thyroid cancer(s) to develop from today forward in a group of 1,000 people of your age and sex, who were exposed at the same age and level as you were.

Thus, we expect that thyroid cancer would not develop in 999 out of 1,000 people of your age and sex.

By comparison, if this group had no exposure to radiation from nuclear weapons testing, we would expect about 1 out of 1,000 people to develop thyroid cancer from today forward.

The estimated range of your risk

Your risk cannot be estimated with certainty. The estimated range of your risk of developing thyroid cancer from this day forward is 1.0 chances in 1,000 up to 1.6 chances in 1,000.

What does this estimated range mean?

Scientifically, we cannot estimate the exact risk of developing thyroid cancer for any person. We can, however, estimate the range of your risk (this is a 90 percent uncertainty range). Note that the best estimate of your risk lies within this range.

Based on this estimated range , we expect from 1.0 to 1.6 thyroid cancer(s) to develop from today forward in a group of 1,000 people of your age and sex, who were exposed at the same age and level as you were.