The Effect of Skeletally Deposited Alpha-ray emitters in Man(silvanus Thompson Memorial Lecture)

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Abstract
Quantitative studies of more than 450 humans who have carried skeletal deposits of radium (226 Ra) and of mesothorium (228Ra) for periods up to about 50 years are presented as dose v. response relationships. Several different specifications of dose and of biological end-points are compared. For residual skeletal burdens greater than about 0·5 μCi 226Ra (or its rad or rad-year dosimetric equivalent of 228Ra) the occurrence of osteoporosis, dense bone necrosis, trabecular coarsening, and spontaneous fracture increases with increasing residual skeletal burden and even more clearly with a dose parameter called cumulative rad-years in which increments of rad dose are weighted in proportion to the time elapsed since the incremental dose was delivered. For residual skeletal burdens from about 0·5 to 60 μCi 226Ra the fractional incidence of osteogenic sarcoma and carcinoma of the paranasal sinuses or of the mastoids is about 40 per cent and appears to be independant of residual body burden. However, the tumour ap...

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