A comparison of the predicted risks of developing osteosarcoma for dogs exposed to 238PuO2 based on average bone dose...

Dose-response relationships observed in laboratory animals can be used to identify possible human risk factors and may also be used in a quantitative manner when human data are not available. This paper presents an analysis of the dose dependency of osteosarcoma incidence in beagle dogs given a single inhalation exposure to a monodisperse aerosol of 238PuO2. We were particularly interested in comparing the predicted risks that were based on average bone dose with those based on endosteal cell dose and in evaluating the advantages of using a more biologically relevant cell-specific dose in risk estimation. The endosteal cell dose was calculated using the method of Marshall et al. (Health Phys. 35, 91-101, 1978), as extended to account for exposure by inhalation. The relationship between dose and time to tumor was analyzed by the proportional hazards regression model. The probability of developing osteosarcoma was strongly dependent on dose for dogs receiving low doses, but this was not true for dogs receiving high doses. The predicted risk based on endosteal cell dose was not consistently higher or lower than the risk based on average bone dose at various times after exposure, because the relationship between these two doses was not linear with respect to time. Also, as a result of the nonlinear relationship between these two doses, the risk estimated based on endosteal cell dose would not be a fixed factor of that based on the average dose. Random errors in the measured initial lung burden had a relatively large impact on the predicted risk based on endosteal cell dose, and the difference between the estimated risk of developing osteosarcoma based on endosteal cell dose and that based on average bone dose is likely to be within the error margins of the estimated risks.