Abstract
Chromosome aberration frequencies in peripheral blood lymphocytes from a selected sample of a population in Badgastein, Austria, subjected to an increased natural background of ..cap alpha.. irradiation, and persons occupationally exposed to additional levels of radiation have been investigated. The accumulated ..gamma.. and ..cap alpha.. blood doses were calculated for each individual studied. Our data show that even at annual doses of 100 to 340 mrad ..gamma.. and 1 to 1600 mrad ..cap alpha.. irradiaton a dose-effect relationship can be demonstrated. The shape of the dose-effect curve is, however, not related to that predicted from exposures to higher levels of radiaton. The persons continually irradiated by the environment showed a steep increase of aberration frequencies with dose. Additional occupational ..cap alpha.. doses, delivered fractionally, resulted in a flattening of the dose-related effect. For a certain group of workers, who entered a hot mine with a considerable radon-222 content in the air, the two-event chromosome aberrations even decreased with increasing ..cap alpha.. burdens. It is suggested that the shape of the dose-response curve at these very low levels of radiation may result from the induction of repair enzymes.
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