Hematologic syndrome in man modeled from mammalian lethality

Data on acute radiation lethality due to failure of the hematologic system in rats, mice, dogs, swine, monkeys and man are analyzed. Based on the available data, the mortality incidences for 1-100% levels can be computed directly if one has only an estimate of the dose lethal to 50% of the population (LD50) for the mammalian strain and radiation environment of interest. The sole restriction is that the dose profile to the marrow be moderately uniform. If an LD50 for any exposure situation has been measured, then one can readily scale to any desired situation through implicit-biological and empirical-physical relationships. The LD50 for man, exposed to an isotropic cloud of photons, and knowledge of the bone-marrow dose profiles readily permit evaluation of the model for other levels of human mortality from different irradiating particles, partial body irradiation and spatially dependent and/or mixed radiation environments. (author)