Radioactive, mortality

Martling U, Mattsson A, Travis LB et al (1999) Mortality after long-term exposure to radioactive Thoro-trast a forty-year follow-up survey in Sweden. Radiat Res 151 293-299... 

Two epidemiology studies have examined mortality among thorium workers neither found significant excess mortality. The standard mortality ratio (SMR) for all causes of death in a cohort of 3039 male workers in a thorium processing plant was 1.05 in comparison to United States white males (Polednak et al. 1983). The estimated radiation levels to the workers for inhalation intake ranged from 0.003-0.192 nCi/m (0.001-0.007 Bq/m ) for a period of 1-33 years. No evidence of overt industrial disease was found in a cohort of 84 workers at a thorium refinery exposed to <0.045-450 nCi/m (<0.002-0.02 Bq/m ) for <1-20 years (Albert et al. 1955). In both studies, the workers were exposed to other toxic compounds (uranium dust) as well as other radioactive materials (thoron, uranium daughters, thorium daughters, cerium). 

The radiological effects of thorium were examined by testing isotopes with shorter radioactive half-lives than thorium-232. No increased mortality was found in mice injected intravenously with 0.5 ml Thorotrast (3660 mg thorium-232/kg) (Guimaraes et al. 1955), or in dogs after intraarterial injection of thorium nitrate (476 mg thorium-232/kg), but the LDsofor intravenously- injected thorium-230 in rats was 42.7 mg thorium/kg (Boone et al. 1958). The toxic effects of thorium were attributed to radiological and not chemical effects (Boone et al. 1958). 

Epidemiological studies of populations in the FSU exposed to fallout from the 1986 nuclear reactor explosion at Chernobyl and releases from the Chelyabinsk-65 complex demonstrate the health effects associated with exposure to radioactive iodine, strontium, and caesium. A study of 2.81 X 10" individuals exposed along the Techa River, downstream from Chelyabinsk-65, revealed that a statistically significant increase in leukemia mortality arose between 5 yr and 20 yr after the initial exposure (37 observed deaths versus 14-23 expected deaths see Cochran et al. (1993) and cited references and comments). There has been a significant increase of thyroid cancers among children in the areas contaminated by fallout from the Chernobyl explosion (Harley, 2001 UNSCEAR, 2000). The initial external exposures from Chernobyl were due to and short-lived isotopes. Subsequently, external exposures to Cs and nd internal... 

Radiological terrorism is the use of radioactive material to cause human casualties, environmental destruction and maximum disruption, panic and fear (1) in the general population for political purposes. Since the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in 1945, with 150,000 casualties and 75,000 fatalities (2), people have feared nuclear explosives more than any other weapons of mass destruction, because of the ability of these weapons to cause immediate devastation and trauma, and because radiation, undetected by human senses, can cause ongoing morbidity and mortality, including cancer, years after exposure (3). 

A large scale trial with patients treated for up to 3 years with colestipol showed lower cardiovascular mortality in men, but not in women."" The resins lower LDL-C a study with colestipol showed no change in HDL-C." The metabolic disposition of oral [ C]colestipol was studied in rats, dogs and man absorption was negligible and virtually all of the radioactivity was excreted in feces. ... 

Franklyn JA, Maisonneuve P, Sheppard MC, et al. Mortality after the treatment of hyperthyroidism with radioactive iodine. N Engl J Med 1998 338 712-718. 

Developmental Effects. Slight increases in child mortality from chromosomal defects and from congenital anomalies of the nervous system, circulatory system, and other unspecified anomalies were reported in the progeny of the radiation-exposed population of the Techa River region. However, the contribution of radioactive strontium to this effect is uncertain. No studies were located regarding... 

No inhalation studies implicate stable strontium as a cause of death. Several animal studies report increased mortality following acute exposure to inhaled radioactive strontium in soluble or insoluble forms. 

The percent mortality values for dogs from exposure to radioactive strontium by the inhalation route are presented in Table 3-1 and plotted in Figure 3-1. 

Radioactive Strontium. In the Techa River population that was exposed to radiostrontium and radiocesium in drinking water and food between 1949 and 1956, an increase in the number of deaths from leukemia and solid cancers was reported (Kossenko 1996). In the exposed group, the standardized mortality rate was 140 (95% Cl 131-150) per 100,000 compared to 105 (95% Cl 101-109) per 100,000 in the control group during the followup period (1950-1982). Absorbed doses to the red bone... 

Radioactive Strontium. In the Techa River cohort, individuals who were exposed to high levels of radiostrontium as teenagers had a higher frequency of stable transformations than those who were adults at the time (Bauchinger et al. 1998) the differences were attributed to increased skeletal incorporation of radiostrontium in the young. The progeny of the exposed cohort showed an elevated incidence of adverse pregnancy outcomes (mortality from developmental anomalies, chromosomal anomalies, labor... 

In chemical kinetics a marked species can be a molecule containing a radioactive isotope and we neglect the kinetic isotope effect. In fluid mechanics a marked species can be a colored fluid for which the hydrodynamic properties (density, viscosity, diffusion coefficients) are the same as the ones of the main fluid. In population genetics a marked species can be an individual carrying a neutral mutation, and for which the main functions describing the vital statistics (natality and mortality functions, diffusion coefficients) are the same as in the case of a nonmutant individual. In the following we denote by (r, t) and p (r,t), u = 1,2,..., the concentrations of the not marked and marked species, respectively, and by p (r, r) = Pj r,t)+p r,t),u = 1,2,..., the total concentrations of the species. 

In addition to delayed deaths due to whole-body exposure, allowance has to be made for effects on particular organs, such as the lungs and thyroid, which suffer significant jS doses due to concentration of inhaled radioactivity in these organs. The estimated mortality rates or lung and thyroid doses, used in the APS study, are shown in Table 12.9. The principal effect of thyroid irradiation, in fact, is to produce benign thyroid nodules, which contribute the main source of long-term illness induced by the accident. 

Despite serious damage to the plant, the release of radioactive material was relatively small and presented a negligible hazard to the public. Based on the linearity hypothesis of radiation damage, the total number of radiation-induced cancer deaths likely to result from the release was estimated as 0.7. In practical terms, this means that the number of deaths will be zero or almost zero even in the unlikely event that a few radiation-related deaths were to occur, the number would be far below that which could be detected statistically in view of the normal cancer mortality rate. 

Inhaled CNTs are rapidly absorbed and passed into the blood of humans. In a study involving human volunteers, Technigas (an aerosol of radioactive technetium-labeled carbon NPs in the range of 5-1 Onm) was shown to rapidly diffuse into the human blood. The authors concluded that carbonaceous air pollution could impact cardiovascular morbidity and mortality [16]. 

Cardiovascular mortality in relation to radioactivity and Hardness of local water supplies. 

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