Basal-cell carcinoma
In the United States approximately 3 out of 10 caucasians develop a basal-cell carcinoma during their lifetime. This tumor accounts for approximately 70% of non-melanoma skin cancers. In 80 percent of all cases, basal-cell carcinoma affects the skin of head and neck. Furthermore, there appears to be an increase in the incidence of basal-cell cancer of the trunk in recent years.
Microbeam
At the low doses of relevance to environmental radiation exposure, individual cells only rarely experience traversals by an ionizing particle and almost never experience more than one traversal. For example, in the case of domestic radon exposure, cancer risk estimation involves epidemiological studies of uranium miners. These miners inhale radon gas, which then undergoes radioactive decay, emitting an alpha particle This alpha particle traverses the cells of the bronchial epithelium, potentially causing cancer. The average lifetime radon exposure of these miners is high enough that cancer risk estimates are driven by data on individuals whose target bronchial cells are subjected to multiple alpha particle traversals. On the other hand, for an average house occupant, about 1 in 2,500 target bronchial cells will be exposed per year to a single alpha particle, but less than 1 in 10 of these cells will experience traversals by more than one particle. Therefore, in order to extrapolate from miner to environmental exposures, it is necessary to be able to extrapolate from the effects of multiple traversals to the effects of single traversals of a particle.