Radon, Bronchial Morphometry, and Occupational Health

摘要

Estimates were made of quality factors (radiation weighting factors) for radonprogeny, and the ratio of quality factors for radon progeny for miners and for home residents, based on data from the C3H10T1/2 oncogenic transformation system at linear energy transfers ranging from 3 to 475 kiloelectron volts/micrometer. The best estimate for the quality factor for radon progeny was significantly lower than those (20 to 25) currently used in estimating lung cancer mortality due to radon. The author concludes that a dosimetrically based estimate of radon induced mortality would be about 35,000 per year in the United States, rather than a value of about 70,000 obtained using Hiroshima/Nagasaki based risk estimates and a quality factor of 20. The author notes that the dosimetric and epidemiologically based risk estimates are partially reconciled by these results.