This report describes a whole body donation from a person with a documented occupational intake of uranium. USTUR Case 1002 was an adult male who died from an acute cerebellar infarct at the age of 83. He worked as a power operator, utility operator, and metal operator for 28 years in a facility that processed and handled radioactive materials. Although he suffered a number of burns from hot metal and acids, cuts, abrasions, and puncture wounds during his many years of work, there were no corresponding health physics or medical records to indicate that these occurrences needed or required excision or decontamination due to the suspicion of the deposition of radioactive material. Over the course of his employment, USTUR Case 1002 submitted numerous urine samples for uranium, plutonium, and fission product analysis. The highest single uranium value measured during this time period was approximately 30 microg L(-1) recorded during the second year of his employment. A urinary bioassay sample taken before termination of employment measured 4.3 microg L(-1). The mean urinary uranium concentration per liter per year calculated from the employee's bioassay records covering the first eleven years of monitoring averaged less than 3 microg L(-1). The ratio of 234/238U activity in the lung tissue was about 1, the same as that found in natural uranium. The highest concentration of uranium was found in a tracheobronchial lymph node. The uranium content in the various tissues of the body followed a rank order lung > skeleton > liver > kidney. Concentration of uranium in the kidney tissue was approximately 1.98 ng g(-1), about 3 orders of magnitude less than the generally accepted threshold level for permanent kidney damage of 3 microg U g(-1) and roughly equal to the 1.4 ng g(-1) reported for Reference Man. The autopsy disclosed findings not uncommon in the aged: severe atherosclerosis, areas of sclerotic kidney glomeruli with stromal fibrous scarring, and moderate to severe arterionephrosclerosis. Lung sections contained parenchymal areas of acute vascular congestion and a mild degree of anthracosis.
We present final measurements of the Z boson-lepton coupling asymmetry parameters A e , A m , and A t with the complete sample of polarized Z bosons collected by the SLD detector at the SLAC Linear Collider. From the left-right production and decay polar angle asymmetries in leptonic Z decays we
Recent work of Green et al. (Gr75) has drawn attention to the potential risk for genetic damage to gonadal tissue due to the nonhomogenous distribution of internal emitters like plutonium. We have recently undertaken a quantitative autoradiographic study in mouse testes of the microdistribution of 23?u, the kinetics of its translocation, and the consequences of nonuniform gonadal irradiation.Twenty-six B6CFI male mice were injected intravenously with 10 pCi/kg of monomeric 23?u-citrate. Groups of mice were sequentially sacrificed at 6, 30,75,222, and 348 days following Pu injection, and testes were weighed and assayed for Pu. At each time point, testes were processed and examined by standard histological and quantitative autoradiographic techniques.Between 6 and 348 days after injection, the overall Pu concentration in the testes, as determined radiochemically, increased by approx. 40%, largely due to a reduction of 30% in the average testis weight. Autoradiographic alpha track counts made over this period showed plutonium deposition mainly in and adjacent to the basement membranes of the seminiferous tubules (52% of the tracks), and in the interstitial tissue (41%). Because of the small fraction of the testis volume occupied by interstitial tissue (about 5%), we calculate that at least half the alpha energy from the interstitial tissue Pu must be absorbed by spermatogonial stem cells. Accordingly, our data indicate that the factor of 2.5, proposed for Pu by Green et al. to convert mean testis radiation dose to the dose received by the stem cells, should be increased to at least 4. We also suggest the possibility of impaired androgen production due to the relatively high concentration of Pu long retained in the interstitial tissue.
Young adult female Dutch Belted rabbits were given a single intravenous injection of polymeric 23gPu-nitrate ( 15% ultrafilterable) or of monomeric 239Pu-citrate (90% ultrafilterable) and killed at 3 days. The plutonium content of the intact femur (bone plus marrow) was higher after the polymeric form. Physical removal of marrow from bone in the tibia showed the plutonium content of the bone to be slightly lower and of the marrow to be 17-fold higher after polymeric than after monomeric plutonium. Polymeric plutonium was also more concentrated in spleen, ovaries, intestines (with contents), skeletal muscle and urine but less concentrated in liver. About the same levels of the two forms of plutonium were found in blood, bile and lung. For the first 30 min after injection, the polymeric plutonium was cleared from the circulation more rapidly than the monomeric. After about 60 min, the two forms were cleared at generally comparable, decreasing rates. Polymeric plutonium was as much as 10-30 times more concentrated in predominantly red (erythropoietic) marrow than in fatty marrow. Monomeric plutonium was 1.3-2.8 times more concentrated in the red marrow.Mice injected with the same plutonium solutions as the rabbits showed, in comparison, a higher per cent of the injected monomeric plutonium in the femurs and a lower per cent in the liver; they showed a higher uptake of polymeric plutonium in the marrow, and a higher uptake of both forms in the spleen and lungs than did the rabbits.
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