Distribution of uranium in human organs of an urban Indian population and its relationship with clearance half-lives.

This organ burdens of uranium were estimated for an urban Indian (Bombay) population living in a normal background environment, using the technique of neutron activation analysis, in combination with post-irradiation chemical separation. The total organ burdens were: skeleton > muscle > soft tissue > lungs > kidney > liver > heart. A comparison was made between the observed organ burdens of uranium for skeleton, kidney, and muscle with those obtained by applying the metabolic model of uranium as recommended by International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) to its daily intake by urban population. The observed organ burdens for kidney and muscle were found to be 4 and 70 times higher than the derived burden values; however, the two estimates were similar in the case of skeleton. This observation indicated that the clearance 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 reasonable.