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Distribution of skeletal malignancies in beagles injected with {sup 239}Pu citrate

Journal Article · · Health Physics
; ;  [1]
  1. Univ. of Utah School of Medicine, Salt Lake City, UT (United States); and others

The distribution of skeletal malignancies among our beagles injected with {sup 239}Pu as young adults roughly seems to follow the distribution of skeletal mass and skeletal {sup 239}Pu. These findings are similar to those we reported previously for a group of dogs given {sup 226}Ra. Although there were differences in tumor distribution between the animals given {sup 239}Ra and those given {sup 239}Pu, most of them were not statistically significant; however, the radium dogs seemed to show a greater sensitivity to bone tumor origin in the tibia, while there may have been a tendency among the plutonium dogs toward increased relative sensitivity in the scapula, lumbar vertebrae, sacrum, and ribs. In contrast, the most common site for the formation of naturally-occurring bone malignancy in the dog is the distal radius. Perhaps there were too few tumors and too few dogs to establish statistical significance. A correlation between tumor location and at least two anatomical-physiological factors in the skeleton indicated that these two factors (site-specific bone turnover rate and percent of red marrow at the site, which is correlated with vascularity) may influence the appearance of malignancies both individually and in combination. Except for the femur, there appeared to be no difference between the relative distribution of skeletal malignancies of low-level (30 Bq-2 Bq kg{sup -1} injected) and high-level (3-122 kBq kg{sup -1}) dogs. Distribution of bone tumors between the axial and appendicular skeleton was 50% vs. 50% for {sup 239}Pu (42 and 42), but it was 39% axial vs. 61% appendicular (22 and 35, respectively) for dogs given {sup 226}Ra. This difference was not significant (p > 0.2). 15 refs., 4 tabs.

Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE
OSTI ID:
258985
Journal Information:
Health Physics, Journal Name: Health Physics Journal Issue: 4 Vol. 66; ISSN HLTPAO; ISSN 0017-9078
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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