Uranium and plutonium in hair as an indicator of body burden in mice of different age and sex.

Abstract

The comparatively recent development of analytical techniques of great power and sensitivity has permitted investigators to establish correlations for ingestion and elemental hair levels of several metals from differing environmental exposures (e.g. YURACHEK et al. 1969, EADS & LAMBDIN 1973). Ease of collection, storage and analysis of human hair, together with its potential as the "recording filament" (STRAIN & PORIES 1966) to reveal retrospective information about an individual and his exposure, has increased its popularity as a forensic biopsy and autopsy material. For some trace elements, levels in hair have been examined forpossible applications in assessing nutritional status, medical diagnosis and the determination of both acute and chronic exposure to toxic elements. The entire topic of trace metals in human hair has been discussed in a recently published book (VALKOVIC 1978). However, while some authors such as KLEVAY (1970a,b) and KELLO & KOSTIAL (1978) have found positive correlations between plasma and hair elemental concentrations for particular population groups, others (e.g. DEEMING & WEBER 1978) could find no correlation between plasma and hair levels, when they are related to diet, age and sex. As part of a program to develop alternative bioassay techniques for potentially occupationally exposed uranium and plutonium workers (BENTLEY & WYATT 1980) hair is being examined as a potential practical biological dosimeter for these elements. For uranium, the results of toxicity (LD50), organ deposition and metabolic animal studies (mainly conducted in the wartime Manhattan Project) are such that quantitative comparisons are not possible. In many reported results, no reference is made to diet, age, sex or strain of the animal used although the importance of these parameters for uranium had been documented in early work (e.g. JACKSON 1910, VERNE 1931). For intraperitoneall y injected rats, an age-dependent increase in acute