Dental enamel as an in vivo radiation dosimeter.

The determination of the radiation exposure history of the population has become increasingly important in the study of the effects of low-level radiation. The present work was started to try to obtain an in vivo dosimeter that could give an indication of radiation exposure. Dental enamel is the only living tissue which retains indefinitely its radiation history, and electron spin resonance measurements have shown that the radiation signal can be resolved down to about 10 cGy. Measurements on samples from the general population give radiation exposure estimates that are reasonable, and one measurement on a patient who had radiotherapy to the mouth area showed a good correlation with tumor dose. We believe that this is an important new indicator of radiation dose and taken together with exposure histories should provide important data for epidemiological studies as well as accidental exposures.