Improved Radiation Dosimetry/Risk Estimates to Facilitate Environmental Management of Plutonium Contaminated Sites

摘要

Our Phase II research evaluated health risks associated with inhaled plutonium. Our research objectives were to: (1) extend our stochastic model for deposition of plutonium in the respiratory tract to include additional key variability and uncertainty; (2) generate and analyze risk distributions for deterministic effects in the lung from inhaled plutonium that reflect risk model uncertainty; (3) acquire an improved understanding of key physiological effects of inhaled plutonium, based on evaluations of clinical data (e.g., hematological, respiratory function, chromosomal aberrations in lymphocytes) for Mayak workers in Russia who inhaled plutonium-239; (4) develop biological dosimetry for plutonium-239 that was inhaled by some Mayak workers (with unknown intake) based on clinical data for other workers with known plutonium-239 intake; (5) critically evaluate the validity of the linear no-threshold (LNT) risk model as it relates to cancer risks from inhaled plutonium-239 (base d on Mayak worker data); and (6) evaluate respirator filter penetration frequencies for airborne plutonium aerosols using surrogate high-density metals.