Researchers from the Linkoeping and Oerebro university hospitals found "a slight exposure-related increase" in total cancer incidence after the Chernobyl disaster. It is the first study to suggest a possible increase in post-Chernobyl cancer rates outside the Soviet Union as a result of the accident. The findings appear in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, which is published by the British Medical Association (BMA).

The world's worst civilian nuclear disaster occurred on April 26, 1986, when reactor number four at the Chernobyl plant blew up. It spewed out a radioactive cloud that swept across and contaminated much of northern Europe. Previous Swedish studies have shown no increase, say the authors, who were led by Martin Tondel of the Faculty of Health Sciences at Linkoeping University. Cancer rates were monitored among 1,143 182 people living in 450 parishes in seven out of Sweden's 21 counties during the two years after the accident. People who lived in the region but whose area was not contaminated by radioactive fallout served as a control group.

During a follow-up study carried out from 1988 to 1996, some 22,400 people in the contaminated areas were diagnosed with various types of cancer during the period. This was 849 more than would otherwise have been expected, when compared to cancer incidence in this region in 1986 to 1988.