Acute radiation sickness due to critical accidents at a nuclear production facility

Abstract

Introduction. Nuclear accidents are rare, however, today they cannot be entirely excluded. Thereupon the wealth of global experience is of particular value for prediction of outcomes that potentially follow short-term exposures to ionizing radiation at high dose rates.The objective is to describe clinical simptoms and signs in workers exposed to acute gamma-neutron radiation.Methodology. This paper considers healths effects after radiation exposure due to a critical accident that happened on January, 2 1958 during operations with an experimental flask containing uranium nitrate solution at the Mayak PA. During accident four workers were exposed to short-term gamma-neutron radiation and subsequently suffered from acute radiation syndrome of different severity degree.Results and discussion. Symptoms of the initial response, development of disorders in various organs and systems and the course of the acute radiation syndrome in exposed individuals are described.Conclusion. Multiple organs or tissues are involved in severe acute radiation syndrome at an early period after acute exposure, at that cardiovascular collapse is the most critical physiological state. Multiple organs or tissues failure in the longtrem period after acute exposure is a secondary manifestation both of the primary nonspecific response to radiation and specific radiation-induced direct damage of highly sensitive cells