Residential radon and lung cancer - Detailed results of a collaborative analysis of individual data on 7148 persons with lung cancer and 14 208 persons without lung cancer from 13 epidemiologic studies in Europe

Objectives: Studies seeking direct estimates of the lung cancer risk associated with residential radon exposure lasting several decades have been conducted in many European countries. Individually these studies have not been large enough to assess moderate risks reliably. Therefore data from all 13 European studies of residential radon and lung cancer satisfying certain prespecified criteria have been brought together and analyzed. Methods: Data were available for 7148 persons with lung cancer and 14 208 controls, all with individual smoking histories and residential radon histories determined by long-term radon gas measurements. Results: The excess relative risk of lung cancer per 100 Bq/m3 increase in the observed radon concentration was 0.08 [95% confidence interval (95% CI) 0.03-0.16; P=0.0007] after control for confounding. The dose-response relationship was linear with no evidence of a threshold, and it remained significant when only persons with observed radon concentrations of