Maximum Possible Doses for a Cohort of Individuals with Intakes Possibly Containing a Component of a Ceramic-type Material. Issue 1 (July 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Klumpp, John; Poudel, Deepesh
• Is Part Of: Health physics. Volume 121:Issue 1(2021)
• Publication Date: 2021-07
• Subjects: operational topics -- 238Pu -- dose assessment -- occupational safety; Biophysics -- Periodicals; Health Physics -- periodicals; Radiation Protection -- periodicals; Radiotherapy -- periodicals; Medische fysica; Electronic journals; 612.01448
• DOI: 10.1097/HP.0000000000001408
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0017-9078

Abstract

Abstract : Abstract: Recently, a glovebox breach led to the potential exposure of 15 Los Alamos National Laboratory employees to 238 Pu. Given what is known about the material involved in the incident, the possibility of an intake with a ceramic-type component must be considered. Incidents in which intakes of ceramic solubility-type material is suspected represent a challenge for internal dose assessment via urine bioassay because even relatively large doses cannot be detected in urine until many months after the intake. Ideally, in these situations fecal samples should be collected to assess the intake, but in this case fecal sampling was delayed. This paper presents a method to calculate the maximum possible doses for all individuals involved in an incident using only early time-decreasing urine bioassay measurements.