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The Potential of Pulsed Electron Spin Resonance for Tooth-Based Retrospective Biodosimetry

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Abstract

Large-scale triage after major radiological events, such as nuclear reactor accidents, requires a method of ionizing radiation dose estimation called retrospective biodosimetry (RBD) to detect doses in the range of 0.5–8 Gy. A well-known technique for performing RBD is electron spin resonance (ESR), which can be used to measure radiation-induced paramagnetic defects in the enamel of the teeth. The concentration of these defects is linearly correlated with radiation doses in the applicable range. Despite its great potential and proven results when applied to extracted teeth, ESR still struggles to provide accurate in vivo readings. This is mainly because all available ESR-based RBD methods rely on quantitative signals for calculating the concentration of paramagnetic defects in tooth enamel to evaluate the dose. This requires an accurate knowledge of the volume of the measured enamel, which is very difficult to achieve in live subjects (since teeth also include dentin and possibly cavities). Here, we examine radiation-induced paramagnetic defects in the enamel layer of human teeth using advanced pulsed ESR methods, with the ultimate goal of supporting the development of an innovative practical RBD device for in vivo use. We employ a variety of pulsed ESR techniques, such as ESR measurements of spin–spin relaxation time (T2), ESR monitoring of instantaneous diffusion decay time (TID), and dipolar ESR spectroscopy, to explore their possible use to quantify the irradiation dose. Moreover, we develop a special resonator for teeth measurements that make use of such pulse techniques to overcome the constrains of small signal magnitudes and short coherence times. Our results show a good correlation between measured values of T2, TID, and the irradiated dose, but further work is required to improve the robustness, accuracy, and sensitivity of the methods presented before they could possibly be applied for in vivo measurements in typical doses of ~ 2–8 Gy. These findings and approaches may be used in the future for the development of a RBD device to evaluate ionizing radiation doses without prior knowledge of the measured enamel volume.

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Acknowledgements

This work was partially supported by a grant from Pazy Foundation in Israel

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Schulich Faculty of Chemistry, Technion–Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel

    Lotem Buchbinder, Nir Dayan & Aharon Blank

  2. Radiation Safety Division, Soreq Nuclear Research Center, Yavne, Israel

    Hanan Datz

  3. Department of Chemical Research Support, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel

    Raanan Carmieli

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Appendix 1: Comparison of ESR Spectroscopic Properties for Intact and Processed Teeth

Appendix 1: Comparison of ESR Spectroscopic Properties for Intact and Processed Teeth

The teeth examined in this work underwent pre-treatment of chemical and mechanical nature, as described in Sect. 2.1.2. While this procedure that we carried out is well established and appears in many official protocols of ESR dosimetry, it is important to verify that such treatment does not affect the spectroscopic properties we examined here. To answer this question, we compared teeth irradiated by 100, 500, and 1000 Gy, using a 137Cs source, before and after the pre-treatment procedure. The results of such comparison, carried out for CW spectra, as well as for Hahn echo and inversion recovery measurements, are shown in Figs. 12, 13, 14 for the 500 Gy tooth. The CW spectrum shows slight differences in shape, but for the pulsed data, which is the essence of this work, there are no measurable differences between the results before/after the treatment procedure. The 1000 and 100 Gy (not shown) exhibit the same behavior.

Fig. 12
figure 12

Continuous wave ESR spectrum of intact teeth irradiated by 500 Gy (blue curve) and that of the same exact teeth after the pretreatment of base etching and mechanical crushing (red) (Color figure online)

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Fig. 13
figure 13

Inversion recovery results for the same tooth, irradiated by 500 Gy before and after the pretreatment of base etching and mechanical crushing

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Fig. 14
figure 14

Hahn echo decay curve results for the same tooth, irradiated by 500 Gy before and after the pretreatment of base etching and mechanical crushing

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Buchbinder, L., Datz, H., Dayan, N. et al. The Potential of Pulsed Electron Spin Resonance for Tooth-Based Retrospective Biodosimetry. Appl Magn Reson 53, 989–1014 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00723-021-01417-z

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