Document Details

A PREDICTION OF EARLY RADIATION LETHALITY USING AN EFFECTIVE DOSE

HOLLISTER, H; VINCENT, A R; CABLE, J W

Location - DOE/NNSA NUCLEAR TESTING ARCHIVE Address - P.O. Box 98521 City - Las Vegas State - NV Zip - 89193-8521 Phone - (702)794-5106 Fax - (702)862-4240 Email - NTA@NV.DOE.GOV

REPORT

1964 Sep 30

Unknown

0038

NV0025620

TABR4

ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION-DIVISION OF BIOLOGY AND M

1994 Aug 26

2003 Sep 18

THE PREDICTION OF THE INCIDENCE OF EARLY DEATH IN A MAMMALIAN SPECIES FOLLOWING EXPOSURE TO IONIZING RADIATION TO THE WHOLE BODY FROM AN EXT ERNAL SOURCE HAS BEEN PURSUED FOR BOTH APPLIED AND INVESTIGATIVE PURPO SES. THIS PAPER, EMPHASIZING THE DEPENDENCE OF THE LETHAL RESPONSE ON THE TIME CHARACTERISTICS OF THE EXPOSURE DOSE, CONSIDERS JOINTLY (1) S OME IMPLICATIONS OF A LONG-STANDING HYPOTHESIS OF H. A. BLAIR ON RECOV ERY FROM RADIATION INJURY AND (2) THE INTERPRETATION OF EXPERIMENTS TO ESTIMATE QUANTAL-RESPONSE RADIATION-TOLERANCE DISTRIBUTION. THE USUAL METHOD FOR MAKING PRACTICAL PREDICTIONS OF EARLY LETHALITY BASED UPON "EQUIVALENT RESIDUAL DOSE" OR "BIOLOGICAL DAMAGE DOSE" DEPENDS UPON A TACIT ASSUMPTION OF CONSTANT VARIANCE FOR THE UNDERLYING TOLERANCE DIS TRIBUTIONS. THERE IS EVIDENCE SUGGESTING THAT SUCH AN ASSUMPTION IS AT BEST FRAGILE. FUTURE EXPERIMENTS ARE NEEDED AND SHOULD BE DESIGNED TO LEAD TO CONCLUSIONS ABOUT THE VALIDITY OF (1) THE BLAIR HYPOTHESIS, I NCLUDING THE PROPER VALUES FOR THE ARBITRARY CONSTANTS, FOR A WIDER RA NGE OF EXPOSURE CHARACTERISTICS AND END POINTS AND (2) THE ASSUMPTION OF CONSTANT VARIANCE FOR THE ASSOCIATED TOLERANCE DISTRIBUTIONS.