Efficiency of low level DTPA therapy in removing plutonium from mice.

Abstract

THE therapeutic use of diethylene-triamine pentaacetic acid (DTPA) for removing plutonium from animals given injections of soluble plutonium has been reported1–4. In these studies the amounts of 239Pu injected were between 2.4 and 60 µg/kg body weight and the amounts of DTPA used in the treatment were between 0.5 and 1 g/kg. In many cases of accidental contamination of humans, the amount of plutonium entering the body has been 0.1 µg/kg or less; nevertheless, the DTPA treatments usually consist of a series of 1 g injections5. Lower doses of DTPA, which minimize any risk of side effects from DTPA, are, however, preferable6,7. In our work, reported here, we gave rats injections of small amounts of 239Pu, which are equivalent to those commonly found in human accidents, and compared the effectiveness of removal of plutonium by small doses of DTPA with the large doses used by others1–4. Our wrork was made possible by the development of a technique for the use of small masses of 237Pu as a metabolic marker for the injected 239Pu (ref. 8).