Re: Nasal Radium Irradiation -Comment on Post

[RADPROJECT@aol.com]

In a message dated 2/2/99 12:44:01 PM Eastern Standard Time, faseiler@nmia.com
writes:

<<   I
 remember an aunt of mine  who had tuberculosis of the skin
 on the tip of her nose in the mid-thirties.  After trying all kinds
 of things, the doctors settled on the new-fad of  irradiating
 the nose tissue with radium needles, and that finally killed the
 Tb bacilli.  That was in about 1938/9, just before WW II.  It
 also killed some healthy tissue, so she then had a thin but
 healthy nose tip. As for somatic effects of that substantial
 'gradient across the whole body' gamma irradiation, well, she
 lived to be 98 and died "of old age."
  >>

Fritz:

It's good to hear you have genes in your family predisposing you to such
longevity. However, the radium treatment you describe, as received by your
aunt is distinctly different than the typical Nasal Radium Irradiation [NRI]
procedure in my post which involved the issue of Monel metal applicators
placed into the nasopharynx of young children. The potential for long-term
somatic health effects from NRI vs. external use of radium sources on skin are
likely quite different for a number of reasons:

1) The NRI treatment placed thinly encapsulated [0.3 mm Monel "filter" or
encapsulated]  50 mg Ra-226 sources into the nasopharynx [bilaterally] at the
opening of the Eustachian tube of children. Infants as young as 6 months old
were treated, with an average age in several followup studies completed to
date of about 8.8 years. The Monel radium nasal applicators, used in the vast
majority of treatments on an estimated 1,000,000 children in the US, were
developed at Johns Hopkins in 1943-44,  and not routinely used until mid-1944.
Monel NRI dosimetry is quite different from earlier sources, which were
encapsulated in 0.5 mm Pt or 1.0 mm Brass.

2) The head size in young children, being much smaller than in a adult, would
result in much higher doses in children to various structures such as the
pituitary, base of the  brain, and thyroid than in an adult for any equal
period of irradiation sufficient to shrink adenoids or tonsils.  Also young
children are typically considered more radiosensitive for any given dose to
any organ, as best the risk/rad  is understood.

For these reasons, and many others we must be careful to consider the unique
nature of NRI treatments on children as the practice was so widely used, and
carefully evaluate the public health mandates of this unique biomedical
situation.


Stewart Farber, MS Public Health
Director - Radium Experiment Assessment Project [REAP]
Consulting Scientist
Public Health Sciences
19 Stuart St.
Pawtucket, RI 02860

Phone/FAX: (401) 727-4947  E-mail: radproject@usa.net
            Web address: http://www.delphi.com/carsreap


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