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Doctors in Japan call for collection of PBSCs from Fukushima workers
Tanimoto T. Lancet. 2011;doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(11)60519-9.
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Five Japanese doctors are recommending the collection of blood products from workers at the damaged Fukushima nuclear facility as a precaution against exposure to high levels of radiation.
In a letter published online April 15 in The Lancet, Shuichi Taniguchi, MD, Naoyuki Uchida, PhD, Tetsuya Tanimoto, MD, Yuko Kodama, MD, and Takanori Teshima, MD, said collecting and storing autologous peripheral blood stem cells (PBSCs) of employees working in Fukushima now, before they have been exposed to health-damaging levels of radiation, offers several advantages, including faster hematopoietic recovery. In addition, patients would avoid the risks associated with allogeneic stem cell transplantation such as graft-versus-host disease and infection caused by immunosuppression.
This suggestion goes against a statement from the Nuclear Safety Commission of Japan, which said there is no need to collect PBSCs, in part because of the physical and psychological burden such collecting would take on the employees.
However, the authors of the letter said a fatal accident at Fukushima could cause the collapse of Japan’s entire nuclear industry, so medical, governmental and industrial officials would be better served by being proactive.
“The process to completely shut down the reactors in Fukushima is expected to take years. The risk of accidental radiation exposure will thus accumulate for the nuclear workers and banking of their autologous PBSCs will become increasingly important,” the authors wrote. “A judgment of right or wrong on this scheme must be determined from the standpoint of the nuclear workers and their families, not from a point of view of cost-benefit balance in ordinary times.”
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