Internal dose assessment of (210)Po using biokinetic modeling and urinary excretion measurement

The mysterious death of Mr. Alexander Litvinenko who was most possibly poisoned by Polonium-210 ((210)Po) in November 2006 in London attracted the attention of the public to the kinetics, dosimetry and the risk of this high radiotoxic isotope in the human body. In the present paper, the urinary excretion of seven persons who were possibly exposed to traces of (210)Po was monitored. The values measured in the GSF Radioanalytical Laboratory are in the range of natural background concentration. To assess the effective dose received by those persons, the time-dependence of the organ equivalent dose and the effective dose after acute ingestion and inhalation of (210)Po were calculated using the biokinetic model for polonium (Po) recommended by the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) and the one recently published by Leggett and Eckerman (L&E). The daily urinary excretion to effective dose conversion factors for ingestion and inhalation were evaluated based on the ICRP and L&E models for members of the public. The ingestion (inhalation) effective dose per unit intake integrated over one day is 1.7 × 10(−8) (1.4 × 10(−7)) Sv Bq(−1), 2.0 × 10(−7) (9.6 × 10(−7)) Sv Bq(−1) over 10 days, 5.2 × 10(−7) (2.0 × 10(−6)) Sv Bq(−1) over 30 days and 1.0 × 10(−6) (3.0 × 10(−6)) Sv Bq(−1) over 100 days. The daily urinary excretions after acute ingestion (inhalation) of 1 Bq of (210)Po are 1.1 × 10(−3) (1.0 × 10(−4)) on day 1, 2.0 × 10(−3) (1.9 × 10(−4)) on day 10, 1.3 × 10(−3) (1.7 × 10(−4)) on day 30 and 3.6 × 10(−4) (8.3 × 10(−5)) Bq d(−1) on day 100, respectively. The resulting committed effective doses range from 2.1 × 10(−3) to 1.7 × 10(−2) mSv by an assumption of ingestion and from 5.5 × 10(−2) to 4.5 × 10(−1) mSv by inhalation. For the case of Mr. Litvinenko, the mean organ absorbed dose as a function of time was calculated using both the above stated models. The red bone marrow, the kidneys and the liver were considered as the critical organs. Assuming a value of lethal absorbed dose of 5 Gy to the bone marrow, 6 Gy to the kidneys and 8 Gy to the liver, the amount of (210)Po which Mr. Litvinenko might have ingested is therefore estimated to range from 27 to 1,408 MBq, i.e 0.2–8.5 μg, depending on the modality of intake and on different assumptions about blood absorption.