DISTRIBUTION OF URANIUM IN HUMAN ORGANS OF AN URBAN INDIAN POPULATIONAND ITS RELATIONSHIP WITH CLEARANCE HALF-LIVES

This organ burdens of uranium were estimated for an urban Indian (Bomb ay) population living in a normal background environment, using the te chnique of neutron activation analysis, in combination with post-irrad iation chemical separation. The total organ burdens were: skeleton > m uscle > soft tissue > lungs > kidney > liver > heart. A comparison was made between the observed organ burdens of uranium for skeleton, kidn ey, and muscle with those obtained by applying the metabolic model of uranium as recommended by International Commission on Radiological Pro tection (ICRP) to its daily intake by urban population. The observed o rgan burdens for kidney and muscle mere found to be 4 and 70 times hig her than the derived burden values; however, the two estimates were si milar in the case of skeleton. This observation indicated that the cle arance half-lives for uranium present in kidney and muscle tissue are likely to be longer than those reported by ICRP. For skeleton, however , the clearance half-life reported by the ICRP appeared to be reasonab le.