Hazard of Tritium as a Deoxyribonucleic Acid Label in Man

IN the Recommendations of the International Commission on Radiological Protection 1,2 (1955, 1960) on maximum permissible body burden, tritium is considered only in water which is widely and uniformly distributed throughout the body. It is pointed out in the Recommendations that great care must be t...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature (London) 1960-04, Vol.186 (4718), p.91-92
Main Authors: OLIVER, R., LAJTHA, L. G.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
AGE
ANIMAL CELLS
BIOLOGY AND MEDICINE
BODY
CYTOLOGY
DNA
GENETICS
Humanities and Social Sciences
Humans
LABELLED COMPOUNDS
letter
Male
MAN
MITOSIS
multidisciplinary
MUTATIONS
NUCLEIC ACIDS
RADIATION INJURIES
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
TRACER TECHNIQUES
TRITIUM
Tritium - toxicity
VARIATIONS
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:IN the Recommendations of the International Commission on Radiological Protection 1,2 (1955, 1960) on maximum permissible body burden, tritium is considered only in water which is widely and uniformly distributed throughout the body. It is pointed out in the Recommendations that great care must be taken in applying these data to other chemical forms which may give a different localization. However, this fact is still not always appreciated and although it is particularly serious for tritium. The average range of its beta-particles is only about 1µ (maximum range about 7µ) and the local dose-rate will have reached about half the maximum for a deposit of isotope in a volume of the order of only 10µ 3 . Further, an increased relative biological effectiveness is to be expected for these low-energy beta-particles compared with gamma radiation, and from observations of radiation effects on cell growth, Pinson and Langham 3 have suggested that a value of 1.7 should be used.
ISSN:0028-0836
1476-4687
DOI:10.1038/186091a0