The Distribution of Radium in Human Bone

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Abstract
Tracks in microscopic volumes of the long bones of 3 cases of radium poisoning show a activity mainly in the Haversian systems of the 2 patients who received their radium at the ages of 32 and 47, while in the patient who ingested radium at age of 17, most activity was in a sub-periosteal layer of bone. In this patient "hot spots" accounted for about 12% of the volume of the sections studied; this was about 4 times greater than in the other 2 cases. The highest concentration of a activity was found with the highest body burden, in a plugged Haversian system. The non-uniformity factors for the 3 cases were in the range 13-40. The corrsponding non-uniformity factor for the hypothetical deposition of Sr90 in the Ra226 sites has a maximum value of 6, corresponding to the sub-periosteal activity in one case. The maximum dose-rates from the observed concentrations of radium in the "hot spots" of the 3 cases have been calculated for different structures in bone. The "quantisation" of a radiation and its implications, as opposed to the calculations of mean dose, are also discussed.