Use of Nasal Swab Activity to Estimate Intake in Internal Dosimetry

In addition to a review of theoretical analyses, this work presents an empirical study of nasal swab data from the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) database correlated with intake obtained from plutonium internal dosimetry calculations. As a result of this work, several "intake-versus-nasal-swab" models were derived. We advocate quantitative use of nasal swab measurements in dose assessment calculations and discuss ways that this can be done. The best description of the LANL plutonium internal dose database is arguably intake = A + Bx, where A = 2.7 Bq, B = 3.8, and x = summed nasal swab activity. The geometric standard deviation was found to be 8.2. This relationship, obtained using plutonium data, should apply also for other radionuclides.