238U CONTENT IN URINE OF URANIUM MINERS AND ITS MODELED VALUES

The aim of the study is to make a comparison of daily 238U excretion in urine among 115 active uranium miners and its modeled values obtained from inhalation intake of long-lived alpha emitters as measured by personal dosemeters and assessed by biokinetic models for different absorption parameters settings for inhaled uranium. A total of 144 spot samples of urine were collected. The 238U content was measured using high-resolution inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry method. To obtain estimates of the daily excreted values, the daily values were calculated according to the expected daily excretion of creatinine assessed individually for each miner. When determining the relation between the experimentally found data and the modeled data, a high emphasis was placed on uncertainty of the both compared quantities. All the tested absorption parameters settings produced in average 1.4-4.7-fold higher values than the experimentally found values in the urine.