Radioactivity studies. Progress report. Volume I

A model was developed to be used to calculate the accumulation of uranium in the organs of the human body for different kinds of exposure. The proposed model divides the human body into compartments: red cell, short-term bone, long-term bone, kidney, and urine. The transfer rate between compartments is governed by 1st order kinetics. Transfer from plasma to the other compartments is instantaneous. Feedback from compartments to plasma is taken into account. The division of blood into plasma and red cell compartment is important to the calculations of uranium transport during the first few days after exposure. It was noted that uranium in bone has two different half-lives depending on the site of deposition, a short-term and a long-term bone component. An analytical solution to the model was proposed for any time-dependent exposure to uranium. This methodology is unique to this model and represents a significant change in analytical solutions. Specific analytical solutions for common cases of uranium exposure were derived. These include: single injection dose to the blood; exposure to background levels of natural uranium by ingestion; exposure through inhalation during working hours for uranium workers; single inhalation dose; constant inhalation exposure during a finite interval of time; and single ingestion dose. For model verification five baboons were injected intravenously with uranium nitrate and the partition of uranium between plasma and red cells was studied. The half-life in short-term bone was derived and the distribution in soft tissues four days after injection was studied: the kidney was the main organ for uranium deposition. The concentration in human skeleton was equal to 0.02 μg U/g ash. For this concentration in skeleton the gastrointestinal absorption factor was calculated as 23% and the daily excretion as 0.24 μg U/day