Retention level of Cs-137 and K-40 in some users of an Egyptian nuclear research center.

Body burden activities of Cs-137 and K-40 of about 120 humans, of composite sex, were measured using Inshas whole body counter facilities. The contained body burden activity in such distribution is found to be 3.5-10 Bq l-1 for Cs-137 and 3.39 x 10(-3) kg l-1 as well as 3.69 x 10(-3) kg l-1 for K-40 respectively for females and males. It was found, that the amount of Cs Kg l-1 K increases significantly with increase of either the body volumes and/or the total body potassium. It seemed reasonably to conjecture that, from the results of this study, the retention time of Cs-137 in body is closely connected to the amount of K-40. The discrimination factor related to the body burden content of Cs-137 to K-40 is also experimentally predicted. Moreover, the burden activities of Cs-137 and K-40 over a period of two years are scanned monthly. The results show a slight continuous increase in body burden activity of both elements. The net daily intakes of Cs-137 and K-40 are calculated using a formula developed from ICRP. The calculated results for K-40 show a variation ranging from 30 to 40 Bq per day for females and from 45 to 55 B per day for males. While for Cs-137 show a slight variation ranged from 5.2 to 6.8 Bq per day for a composite sex. The authors emphasise the importance of the periodic measurement of human population since both the consumed food chain and the environmental enclosure contained both radio elements. Accumulation of the daily ingested activity of Cs-137 and K-40, and of food eaten, showed that the predicted body burden retained activity is relatively higher by a range of 5-25% for Cs-137 and 3-15% for K-40 when compared with that detected by the whole body counter over the 24-month scanning course.

A simple calibration of a whole-body counter for the measurement of total body potassium in humans.

A simple calibration procedure for the Inshas whole body counter for evaluating total body potassium has been adopted. More than 120 Egyptian employees in the Nuclear Research Center (N.R.C.) were studied for their total body potassium (TBK). The potassium values were found to have an average of 2.85 +/- 0.57 g K kg-1 body weight for males and 2.62 +/- 0.52 g K kg-1 for females, which are higher than the recommended value given for reference man by ICRP. The TBK varied directly with body build index and is slightly sex dependent.