Radiation acute damage from

Health effects from exposure to radiation fall into two categories stochastic (based on probability) and acute. Stochastic effects typically take several years to materialize (e.g., cancer appearing 20 years after an exposure) while acute effects such as nausea or reddening of the skin may take only weeks, days, or even hours to materialize. Stochastic and acute effects are described in more detail in the following sections. First, however, a brief discussion describes how radiation damages human tissue and why exposure may produce one or a combination of the described health effects. 

The human body is equipped to deal with nominal levels of radiation doses. Background (natural) radiation from radon gas, cosmic sources, soil, and water produces an average dose of about 0.3 rem (0.003 Sv) per year.4 However, large doses of radiation generated after a terrorist attack can overwhelm the body s ability to repair damage, leading to stochastic or acute health effects. 

Gastrointestinal Syndrome Illness resulting from acute exposure to a chemical or ionizing radiation, resulting in damage to the gastrointestinal tract. 

Acute radiation exposure, which can cause radiation sickness, radiation burns, and so forth, is caused by the energy deposited in the body, and so we are looking for effects that will occur within hours, days, or weeks of the exposure. As cancer takes many years or decades to develop, quantifying the long-term effects of DNA damage resulting from an acute exposure is not as important. In the case of acute radiation exposure, then, we measure only the amount of energy deposited in the body, so we use units of Gy or rad. 

Nephrotoxicity of bisphosphonates is a known complication of this compound class, often exacerbated by diseases that compromise renal function, such as multiple myeloma, and by concomitant use of antineo-plastic agents, steroids, and radiation therapy. The first reports of tubulointerstitial damage after treatment with etidronate and clodronate appeared more than 2 decades ago [60]. Subsequently, acute tubular necrosis, focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS), and granulomatous interstitial nephritis have been reported in renal biopsies from predominantly cancer patients exposed to several bisphosphonates, often at high i.v. doses. 

Some skin damage frequently accompanies ARS. However, the cutaneous syndrome can also result from localized acute radiation exposure to the skin, usually from direct handling of radioactive sources or from contamination of the skin or clothes (2,8) (see Figs. 4.1 and 4.2) With localized exposure, even with high doses, the victim frequently survives, because the whole body usually does not receive the localized dose. However, if a patient with localized radiation induced cutaneous injury has also received whole body irradiation from an external source, the cutaneous damage increases the risk for death from the whole body exposure (2). Patients with the hematopoietic syndrome due to whole body irradiation will recover more slowly, if at all, from cutaneous injury due to bleeding, infection and poor wound healing (2). 

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