ABSTRACT
Objective To quantitatively analyze the effects of high background radiation area (HBRA) on the frequencies of translocation and unstable chromosome aberrations in human peripheral blood lymphocytes.Methods Based on the data from 9 published articles retrieved from 7 electronic databases,the Meta-analysis was performed to evaluate the effects of high natural background radiation (HNBR) on the frequencies of chromosome aberrations in the peripheral blood lymphocytes in 17 777 persons from HBRA and 10 386 from the control area (CA).Cochrane's Q and I2 statistics were used to evaluate heterogeneity among studies and pooling odds ratio (OR) with 95％ confidence intervals (95％ CI) were calculated using random-effect models.Publication bias was also calculated by funnel plot,Egger linear regression test and Begg rank correlation test.Results The pooling OR of translocation [OR(95％ CI) =1.57(1.10-2.24)] and unstable chromosome aberration [OR(95％ CI) =2.04(1.32-3.14)] of long-term exposed inhabitants living in HBRA were higher than control.The subgroup analysis showed that,fortranslocation,the OR (95％ CI) were 1.24 (1.09-1.42,I2 =0.00) for male,1.37 (1.17-1.60,I2 =0.00) for female,1.17 (1.05-1.30,I2 =69.50％) for adults,and 1.38 (1.25-1.51,I2 =0.00) for Chinese.For unstable chromosome aberration,the OR (95％ CI) were 3.78 (2.40-5.97,I2 =0.00) for female,2.60 (2.25-3.00,I2 =69.60％) for adults,1.03(0.85-1.24,I2 =0.00) for children,3.19 (2.46-4.13,I2 =21.60％) for Iranian,and 1.64 (1.33-2.02,I2 =0.00) for Chinese.HBRA,age and sex differences were the reasons of above heterogeneity.Conclusions To the inhabitants living in HBRA,the frequencies of translocation and unstable chromosome aberration of peripheral blood lymphocytes are higher than those in control area.More comprehensive analysis should be performed to assess the health risk in HBRA inhabitants,which may arise new stragety in radiation protection.