RADIATION PROTECTION ›› 2023, Vol. 43 ›› Issue (4): 372-383.

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Carcinogenic effect of tritium water on mice or rats: A systematic review and Meta analysis

XU Kai1,2, LI Mei1, WANG Chunping2, LU Haili3, SHAN Wenping2, QIN Xiujun1   

  1. 1. Shanxi Key Laboratory for Pharmaceutical Toxicology & Radiation Injury Pharmaceuticals/CNNC Key Laboratory for Radiotoxicology and Preclinical Assessment of Radiopharmaceuticals, Department of Radiology and Environmental Medicine, China Institute for Radiation Protection, Taiyuan 030006;
    2. School of Public Health, Weifang Medical University, Shandong Weifang 261052;
    3. Shanxi Medical University, Taiyuan 030001
  • Received:2022-05-16 Online:2023-07-20 Published:2023-07-25

Abstract: A systematic review and meta-analysis were used to explore the relationship between exposure to tritium water (HTO) and carcinogenic effect in rats or mice. Database such as PubMed, Embase, The Cochrane Library, Web of Science, CNKI, China Biomedical Literature Database, Wanfang, and VIP were searched with computer. Literature regarding carcinogenicity of rats exposed to tritium water was searched for experimental studies that met the inclusion criteria, with time frame from the establishment of the aformentioned databases to February 15th 2021. Literature was managed by using Endnote 9.2. Toxicological data reliability evaluation tool ToxRTool was used to evaluate the quality of the literature. A total of 10 experimental studies were included. Among them, 4 articles reported the malignant transformation experiment in vitro and 7 articles reported the experiment in vivo. For the in Vitro cases, the cell Surviving Fraction decreased exponentially with the increase of radiation dose. The equation was lnSF = 0.047-0.270 D (P<0.001), R2=0.850. Taking the radiation dose of cells as the independent variable and the malignant transformation fraction (foci/dishes) as the dependent variable, the fitting equation was y=0.205+0.195x (P<0.001), R2=0.853; Meta-analysis of dose-response relationship showed that the risk of malignant transformation of cells increased rapidly at first and then increased slowly with the increase of radiation dose. For the in Vivo cases, the increase of the activity of intraperitoneal injection resulted in a decrease of median or average survival time. Tritium water (HTO) has a definite carcinogenic effect on both cells and animals and leads to the decline of life quality. However, the carcinogenic effect of very low dose tritium water exposure needs further study.

Key words: mouse, tritium water, carcinogenesis, systematic review, meta analysis

CLC Number: 

  • Q691.5