Acute radiation sickness

People exposed to a single large dose or a few large doses of radiation in a short period of time are said to have experienced an acute radiation exposure. More than 230 people suffered acute radiation sickness and 28 died when a meltdown occurred in 1986 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the Ukraine. 

Whole-body Irradiation. Whole-body irradiation, where absorbed doses are high and acquired over short periods of time, will result in acute radiation sickness. There are three characteristic syndromes that make up the typical clinical pattern of acute radiation sickness. These are the hematopoietic, gastrointestinal, and neurovascular syndromes which occur with increasing dose, respectively. 

K.S. Temovoy (ed.), Hemosorption in the Treatment of Acute Radiation Sickness (in Russian), Naukova Dumka Publ., Kiev, Ukraine, 1983. 

Radiation sickness, known as acute radiation sickness (ARS), is a serious illness that occurs when the entire body (or most of It) receives a high dose of radiation, usually over a short period of time. Many survivors of the Hiroshima and Naga.saki atomic bombs in the 1940s and many of the firefighters who first responded after the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant accident in 1986 became ill with ARS. 

Because it decays by gamma radiation, external exposure to large sources of Co-60 can cause skin burns, acute radiation sickness, or death. Most Co-60 that is ingested is excreted in tlie feces however, a small amount is absorbed by the liver, kidneys, and bones. Co-60 absorbed by the liver, kidneys, or bone tissue can cause cancer because of exposure to the gamma radiation. 

I-l. When radioactive sources are managed in accordance with safety standards in a safe and secure manner, the radiation risks to workers and the public are kept acceptably low. However, if they are not managed appropriately, as in the case of accidents, malicious use or orphan sources, high activity sources may cause a range of deterministic health effects, including erythema, tissue burns, acute radiation sickness and death. 

High dose rates are usually acute exposures rather than continuous, chronic exposures. Their effects include ulceration of skin and intestinal tissue and reductions in white cell production. Symptoms of acute radiation sickness are weakness, sleepiness and eventually stupor, tremors, convulsions, and death. Symptoms may include nausea, vomiting and diarrhea, loss of hair, and bleeding. Death may occur after one or two days or have delays of several weeks. 

Tissue and organ injuries, local injuries, the various syndromes of acute radiation sickness like the bone marrow syndrome, the gastro-intestinal syndrome, the vascular-nervous syndrome, and any other combinations with local radiation burns are the syndromes of deterministic effects (Barabanova et al. 2008). 

Examples of deterministic effects are temporary or permanent sterility in the testes and ovaries depression of the effectiveness of the blood-forming system, leading to a decrease in the number of a blood cells and cataracts. A special case of deterministic effect is the acute radiation sickness resulting from acute whole body irradiation. 

Chernov, G. A. and Raushenbakh, M. O., Serotonin (5-oxytryptamine) in the pathogenesis of acute radiation sickness II. Altered content of serotonin in the intestine and brain of guinea-pigs and rats in acute radiation sickness, Ztbl. ges. Radiol. 68, 112(1961). 

Acute radiation sickness. This occurs after exposure to high levels of radiation. The clinical presentation depends on the radiation dose absorbed. There are... 

As mentioned previously, radiation injury is dose dependent. Following a prodromal phase in acute radiation sickness, there is a latent period of several days before the development of radiation syndromes. 

Table 6.5 The spectrum of acute radiation sickness ARS. Radiation syndrome should be considered as a spectrum of severity from asymptomatic mild exposure to neurovascular syndrome with a very poor prognosis (see text)...

Reproduced with permission from Doughty HA. Medical management of the haematopxDietic syndrome in acute radiation sickness. J R Army Med Corps 2004 150 11-16. Crown Copyright 2004. ... 

DAGHLIAN, HARRY KRIKOR, JR. (1921-1945). U.S. physicist. On 15 September 1945, Daghlian died of acute radiation sickness, 24 days after an accident during an unauthorized Dragon Experiment. His death is credited as the first peacetime nuclear fission-related fatality. 

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