Multicompartment kinetic models for the metabolism of americium, plutonium and uranium in rats

To examine the kinetic behaviour of americium, plutonium and uranium in the different organs of male and female rats an extended mammillary model has been developed; the model is composed of 10 compartments connected with 17 linear transfer coefficients. The 10 compartments describe the behaviour of the three nuclides in the blood, skeleton, liver and kidney, whereas the remaining activity is assigned to one residual organ. Each organ is divided into two compartments, a short- and long-term compartment. Morphologically, in the skeleton the short-term compartment has been assumed to be the bone surface and bone marrow and the long-term compartment to be the deep bone, whereas in the liver there is some evidence to suggest that the short-term compartment is physiologically associated with lysosomes and the long-term compartment is identical with telolysosomes. The influence of age, sex and different nuclides on the transfer coefficients and the absorbed radiation dose have been discussed. Additionally, by using the transfer coefficients calculated for intravenous injection, the behaviour of the nuclides in skeleton and liver during continuous intake has been calculated. As a second example of the application of the model the behaviour of the three nuclides in skeleton and liver after intravenous injection has been calculated with the additional assumption that from the fifth day on the animals were treated continuously with a chelating agent.