Abstract
The dicentric chromosome (DC) assay accurately quantifies exposure to radiation; however, manual and semi-automated assignment of DCs has limited its use for a potential large-scale radiation incident. The Automated Dicentric Chromosome Identifier and Dose Estimator (ADCI) software automates unattended DC detection and determines radiation exposures, fulfilling IAEA criteria for triage biodosimetry. This study evaluates the throughput of high-performance ADCI (ADCI-HT) to stratify exposures of populations in 15 simulated population scale radiation exposures. ADCI-HT streamlines dose estimation using a supercomputer by optimal hierarchical scheduling of DC detection for varying numbers of samples and metaphase cell images in parallel on multiple processors. We evaluated processing times and accuracy of estimated exposures across census-defined populations. Image processing of 1744 samples on 16,384 CPUs required 1 h 11 min 23 s and radiation dose estimation based on DC frequencies required 32 sec. Processing of 40,000 samples at 10 exposures from five laboratories required 25 h and met IAEA criteria (dose estimates were within 0.5 Gy; median = 0.07). Geostatistically interpolated radiation exposure contours of simulated nuclear incidents were defined by samples exposed to clinically relevant exposure levels (1 and 2 Gy). Analysis of all exposed individuals with ADCI-HT required 0.6–7.4 days, depending on the population density of the simulation.
Highlights
Radiation emergency management in a nuclear radiation incident over a large geographic region or affects many individuals involves an extraordinary degree of coordination between first responders, testing laboratories, and clinical personnel
ADCI estimates radiation exposures using a fully automated process based on a calibration curve derived from the same biodosimetry laboratory [23,24,25]
The Windows-based Desktop version of ADCI was migrated to the PowerPC operating system of IBM BlueGene/Q (BGQ) as ADCI-HT, which significantly improved the throughput of these analyses
Summary
Radiation emergency management in a nuclear radiation incident over a large geographic region or affects many individuals involves an extraordinary degree of coordination between first responders, testing laboratories, and clinical personnel. The dicentric chromosome assay (DCA [1]) is the gold standard test within the clinically relevant and treatable radiation exposure range. While rapid tests are under development for triage purposes (micronucleus, H2AX, etc [11,12,13,14,15,16]), the calibration curves for these assays tend to exhibit high variance, which impacts the confidence of the estimated dose. This can possibly lead to overtesting of worried well or inadequate testing of at risk, exposed populations
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
