The Study of Damage to Bone Marrow Cells as a Biological Dosimeter after Contamination with Osteotropic α Emitters

Abstract

The occurrence of bone tumors is the most frequently studied long-term radiation effect after contamination of experimental animals with bone-seeking radionuclides. Bone tumors are considered as sensitive parameters for radiation damage at low doses and valuable information is already obtained for extrapolation of the effect to other species and other radiation dose levels (ICRP67). However, recently it became obvious that more information is needed to fill gaps in the existing knowledge in order to explain and predict bone tumor location (Sp 83), latency period and differences in sensitivity for bone tumor induction between species and between ages. One of the reasons for this lack of knowledge is the scarce attention which has been paid to events at the cellular and molecular level which occur after contamination and which may lead to carcinogenesis; even the target cell population for bone tumor induction is not yet identified. In this paper some experiments will be summarized in which bone marrow cell populations are selectively studied and their radiosensitivity at early times after contamination with a emitters is compared with the dose levels at which bone tumors are induced. The goals are to define target cell populations and investigate how valuable they are as early biological indicators of radiation damage at low dose levels.