PNNL

Abstract

Waterborne releases from the Mayak Production Association in Russia during 1949–1956 resulted in significant doses to persons living downstream; the most contaminated village was Metlino about 7 km downstream. Internal and external doses have been estimated for these residents using the Techa River Dosimetry System–2000; the primary purpose is to support epidemiological studies of the members of the Extended Techa River Cohort (ETRC). Efforts to validate the calculations of external and internal dose are considered essential. Two methods used for the validation of external dose are electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) measurements of teeth and fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) measurements of chromosome translocations in circulating lymphocytes. For EPR, 36 measurements on 26 teeth from 16 donors from Metlino were made at the GSF (16 measurements) and the IMP (20 measurements); the correlation between measurements made at the two laboratories has been found to be 0.99. Background measurements were also made on 218 teeth (63 molars, 128 premolars, and 27 incisors). FISH measurements were made for 31 residents of Metlino at the GSF. These measurements were handicapped by the analysis of a limited number of cells; for several individuals no stable translocations were observed. FISH measurements were also made for 39 individuals believed to be unexposed. The majority of EPR-measurement results fell within the range of 70 to 2700 mGy (including background). The results of FISH-based measurements fell within the range of nondetectable to 2 Gy (background subtracted). The results of individual measurements using EPR and FISH methods were generally consistent with each other and with results of other assays, including thermoluminescent measurements of quartz extracted from bricks taken from old buildings. Results were also consistent with those estimated with the TRDS-2000. Thus, the limited sets of data currently available tend to validate the present calculations of external dose for members of the ETRC. However, more validation work is considered essential to the credibility of the dose calculations being made with the TRDS-2000.