Postmenopausal loss of Ra acquired in adolescence or young adulthood: quantitative relationship to radiation-induced...

From the results of serial measurements of body 226Ra activity in 13 former luminous dial workers 30-60 y after relatively brief periods of intake of luminous compounds in adolescence or young adulthood, we determined the postmenopausal rate of elimination of Ra in percent of contemporary body Ra content per year. This rate was negatively correlated with the "reduced x-ray score," a measure of radiation osteonecrosis observed radiographically in the 13 subjects (r = -0.85, P less than 0.001). The clearance rates of subjects retaining low Ra activity were greater than predicted by retention models. We conclude that for those members of the Ra-exposed population under study for health effects at our institution who sustained the lesser degrees of macroscopic skeletal damage, present estimates of skeletal absorbed dose are systematically low, by at most a factor of 2.