Cohort Study of Radon Exposed Miners in the Erz Mountains, Czechoslovakia

New results extending the follow-up of the major Czechoslovak uranium miners' cohort until 31 December 1989 will be presented.

The cohort was set up in 1970 by Josef Sevc, who sadly died last year. However, the study is being continued without him, and the present work is the result of a collaboration with the London School of Hygiene-and Tropical Medicine and the Imperial Cancer Research Fund in Oxford.

The cohort includes men who started underground work in uranium mines in the Erz mountains in the period 1948-57, and who worked in the mines for at least 4 years.

The year 1948 was chosen as the starting year for the cohort partly because there was a large increase in uranium mining activity in that year, and partly because a substantial number of radon measurements are available from that year onwards.