Solid cancer risk dependence on the Pasquill-Gifford atmospheric stability classes in a radiological event.

Solid cancer risk dependence on the Pasquill-Gifford atmospheric stability classes in a radiological event. Radiat Environ Biophys. 2020 Mar 27;: Authors: Bulhosa VM, Funcke RPN, Brum T, Sanchez JS, Lima ZR, Vital HC, Prah M, Andrade ER Abstract In a radiological event, the lack of preliminary information about the site of explosion and the difficulty in predicting the accurate path and distribution of radioactive plumes makes it difficult to predict expected health effects of exposed individuals. So far, in such a health evaluation, radiation-induced stochastic health effects such as cancer are not included. The Pasquill-Gifford atmospheric classes generally allow connecting atmospheric stability with dispersion of radioactive contaminants to the environment. In this work, an environmental release of radioactive Cs-137 was simulated and the resulting relative risk for solid cancer incidence among the affected population calculated. The HotSpot health physics code was used to simulate the radioactive atmospheric dispersion and calculate the Total Effective Dose Equivalent (TEDE), which was then used to estimate the relative risk of cancer incidence. The main results from this work suggest that the relative cancer risk and atmospheric stability classes are linked by differences in the TEDE. Such a finding may support triage, because it adds additional information on the potentially affected population at the early stages of an emergen...
Source: Radiation and Environmental Biophysics - Category: Physics Authors: Tags: Radiat Environ Biophys Source Type: research