Biodosimetry: chromosome aberration in lymphocytes and electron paramagnetic resonance in tooth enamel from atomic bomb survivors.

Introduction An important ta sk in stu dying the health effec ts of ato mic bomb radi ation is th e: es timatio n of ind ividual doses. Sim ple com parison of th ose wh o were ex pose d to the bo mbs wi th in 2.5 km of th e hyp ocen tre (i .e ., th ose who potent ially recei ved hi gh doses) and those ex posed beyond 3.5 km (Le., pract ically an unexposed grou p) is not only in efficient for dete cting radiation e ffects (i.e .. among th ose ex posed to substan tial doses, on ly abo ut a two-fo ld increase in mortality from leukaemia and a 10% in crease in o ther ca ncers has been observed) but is also uninformative fo r evaluating risk in o ther radiatio n-exposed populati ons becau se 110 com mon scale of referen ce ex ists. In the fo l lov...~up stud ies o f th e atomic bomb survivors conducted by the Atomic Bomb Casualty Co m mission Radi ation Effec ts Research Foundation (RERF) , in divi d ua l doses have been estimated on th e basi s of re called location and sh ie ld ing condi tions at th e tim e of th e bombings. This information had been co llected by in tervicwi ng survivors more than 5 years afte r the bombings. For th is purpose , Japanese house s were replicated at the Nevada Test Site to directly measu re abso rptio n by roof tiles o r mud wa lls ("Ichiban" proje ct ) (l). In 1965, doses wen : assigne d to ahout 90 000 survivors (known as the tenta tive 1965 dosim etry or T65D) . In )986, a new dosirnc try system, te rmed Do sim c try Syste m 1986 or DS86. was introduced to estimate individual doses. Ph ysical dose measuremen ts of roo f tiles, erc ., fit reasonab ly well with th e nS8fi dose estim ates as fa r as th e ato mic-bom b ga mma dose is co ncern ed , whereas some uncertainties st ill see m to ex ist for th e neu tron dose. D586 uses a highly sop histica ted compu ter simulation technique fo r ind ividual dose estimation . In co n trast, th e key inform ation for thi s calc ulatio n depends tot ally on th e intervi ew information obtain ed more th an .i ycars post-bombing, whi ch has neve r been fur thcr valida ted or re fine d.