United States Transuranium Registry. Annual report, October 1, 1981-September 30, 1982

The purposes of the USTR are to study the patterns of distribution, concentration and retention of transuranics in exposed individuals by radiochemical analysis of selected post-mortem tissues; to evaluate the estimates of body or lung burdens made during the life of the individual and compare them with estimates based on the analysis of selected tissues obtained after death; to assess toxic histopathologic changes, if any; to compare findings in animal experiments with estimates in humans who have transuranic depositions; and to serve as a national and international resource center concerning the transuranic elements in man. Results to date have shown premortem health physics estimates of systemic burdens to be somewhat greater than those based on tissue analysis. However, it is suggested that some of the disparity may be a function of analyzing non-representative portions of an organ as well as limitations in the current methods for extrapolation of radiochemical results. Preliminary data from the first whole body tissue analysis indicate that the health physics estimate of the systemic burden is comparable to the post-mortem estimate for this case.