The relevance of dose for low-energy beta emitters

Specific issues in risk assessment for low-energy beta emitters include specification of the radiation weighting factor, values of relative biological effectiveness for specific or accurate risk estimates, non-uniformities of dose within tissues and cells, and use of standard tissue weighting factors for non-uniform situations. Unusual features of low-energy beta emitters include: increased average ionisation density on subcellular (and cellular) scales; short ranges of the beta electrons; non-uniformity of the absorbed dose over subcellular, cellular, and tissue dimensions; reduced hit frequencies; nuclear transmutations; different chemical forms, influencing biokinetics and dose distributions; and large isotopic mass differences, particularly in the case of tritium and hydrogen. Many of these features are not included explicitly in conventional radiation protection dosimetry, although they may be partly included in experimental determinations of relative biological effectiveness. Theoretical and experimental studies have shown low-energy electrons to be particularly efficient in producing double-strand breaks in DNA, including complex double-strand breaks. Hence, on fundamental grounds, tritium beta particles should be expected to have greater biological effectiveness per unit absorbed dose than 60Co gamma-rays or orthovoltage x-rays. For practical purposes, and in view of the paucity of epidemiological estimates of risk from low-energy electrons, consideration should be given to applying a raised relative biological effectiveness, say of value 2, to all low-energy internal emitters, including beta particles and soft x-ray emissions.