Model for the occurrence of bone tumors in beagles

Two-mutation models for bone cancer due to radium, strontium and plutonium

Data from beagle experiments and radium dial painters were used to derive two-mutation carcinogenesis models for bone cancer induced by the bone-seeking radionuclides radium, strontium and plutonium. For all data, the model fits indicate that at low doses both mutation rates depend linearly and equally strongly on dose rate. For the high-LET alpha-particle emitters, a cell killing term reduces the second mutation rate at high dose rates. In all cases, the combined effect of both mutation rates is a linear-quadratic dose-effect relationship for cancer at low doses. This behavior may lead to experimental data that could be mistaken as showing a threshold below which no cancers are induced. Derived parameters such as toxicity ratios and tumor growth times compare well with values reported in the literature. Furthermore, results for plutonium indicate that rapid burial of the nuclide in the growing bones of juvenile beagles leads to a significant reduction of its toxicity, as was suggested previously. The results for radium in beagles compare well with those for humans and suggest that the models derived for strontium and plutonium in beagles may be translated to humans. The significant model parameters for the accurate animal data could then also be used to fit human epidemiological data.

Survival and bone tumor hazard from internal deposition of 226Ra in beagles

The survival of 132 young adult control beagles and 117 beagles receiving graded injections of 226Ra ranging from 0.27 kBq kg-1 to 384.2 kBq kg-1 body mass was analyzed. The hazards of natural deaths, all deaths in injection groups, and deaths by bone tumors were assumed to follow a Weibull distribution with a common shape factor of 6.3. Only the scale factors of the Weibull distributions depend on the injection level. There were no significant sex differences. The relative risk with respect to controls for all causes of death increases up to 6,925 for 384.2 kBq kg-1. The dependence of the scale factors for all deaths and death by bone tumors on injected activity was fitted to an empirical regression model, which also contains a term representing radiation-caused deaths other than bone tumors. The risk of bone tumors increases nearly as the square of the injected activity, whereas the risk of the other radiation caused deaths increases approximately in proportion to the injected activity. By means of the regression model, it is possible to predict median survival times for all deaths, bone tumor and non-bone tumor deaths for an arbitrary intake level. Also, simple expressions for the fraction of animals with bone tumors and other radiation-caused deaths can be derived. The empirical model of bone tumor induction, which was based on results from a single injection design, can be generalized to an arbitrary systemic intake schema. This is achieved by using the average dose and dose rate to the skeleton as indices of detriment. Applying the generalized model, it was confirmed that no significant differences in survival can be expected for two groups of beagles receiving multiple injections, if compared to the corresponding single injection groups of about the same total activity. The general model also predicts that even extensive protraction of the intake would increase the survival times only to a very limited extent.

Review of 239Pu and 226Ra effects in beagles

A long term biological study has been completed that was designed to assess the predicted effects in humans of internally deposited 239Pu by comparison with 226Ra in beagles. Herein we summarize for the first time results of several previous reports about the effects of these two radionuclides in our beagles in an attempt to elucidate what has been learned since the beginning of the study in the early 1950's. Perhaps the most important finding was that bone surface-seeking plutonium is more toxic at equal mean skeletal radiation doses (<3 Gy for 239Pu, <20 Gy for 226Ra) than bone volume-seeking radium for the induction of skeletal malignancy by about a factor of 16 for a single intravenous injection of monomeric 239Pu. In addition, ancillary studies have shown that when plutonium transfers continuously onto bone surfaces from a depot of particulate 239Pu in phagocytic cells, its relative toxicity per Gy average skeletal dose is enhanced by about a factor of 2. Juvenile animals or dogs injected as mature adults were only about half as sensitive for equal mean skeletal doses as dogs injected as young adults. Male and female dogs were about equally sensitive to radiation of the skeleton by either radionuclide. Findings about radiation-induced fractures are summarized as well as data on the induction of soft-tissue malignancies by 239Pu or 226Ra. Natural survival was not affected at the lower dosage levels of either 226Ra or 239Pu as compared with control dogs given no radioactivity, but the survival of animals at higher levels was reduced. No additional life-shortening effects beyond those attributable to occurrence of radiation-induced malignancies or other radiation-induced effects were suggested by analysis of data for low dosage levels.