The transfer of 241Am and 137Cs to the tissues of broilers’ organs

Abstract

Data on the transfer of artificial radionuclides from the environment to the food supply is necessary for internal dose assessment. There is a necessity for expanding and improving the available information on these factors in order to make better dose models for specific scenarios. This paper describes the results of a field experiment with broiler chickens on the transfer factor (F f) and concentration ratio (C R) for the long-term intake of 241 Am and 137 Cs with grass meal and soil. The broilers were divided into two groups, each group had nine subgroups and each subgroup had three broilers. The radionuclide concentrations in the feed and the thigh muscle, thigh bone, and liver of 54 broilers divided between the grass meal and soil groups were evaluated by gamma spectrometry for 241Am and 137Cs. The duration of feeding with "contaminated" sources ranged between 1-70 days. The equilibrium stage of 241 Am in muscle and bone occurs on the 1 st and 40 th day, respectively; for 137 Cs in muscle-30 th days of intake and for liver and bone-7 th days. For 241 Am, the liver did not reach equilibrium stage during the 70 days of intake. F f of 137 Cs in the "forage-muscle" and "soil-muscle" systems were determined as 1.9±0.3 and 0.18±0.05; F f of 241 Am in the "soil-muscle" system was-7.5×10 −5 .

137Cesium (137Cs) assessment in wild boars from northwestern Italy

“…In Bavarian wild boar samples, the contamination of tongue and other unspecified muscles was higher than our findings (min 0.37 kBq/kg, max 14 kBq/kg–median 1.7 kBq/kg) [ 28 ]. From our point of view, the different contamination levels among anatomical sites found can be ascribed to a variety of factors [ 34 – 36 ]. The first one can be the different equilibrium times for 137 Cs.…”

“…Also, the kidney seems to show higher contamination. This issue is interesting because distribution has been studied in several animals and insects but not in wild boar [ 21 , 34 , 36 ].…”