Abstract
THE recommendations of the International Commission for Radiological Protection, 19551, give in Table C.V. values of the effective half-life for iron-55 and iron-59 of 61 and 27 days respectively. The fact that these values are so similar in spite of the big difference in their physical half-lives (1.06 × 103 and 46 days respectively) results from the use of a biological half-life for iron in the blood and blood-forming organs of 65 days (Table C.IV). This result is probably based on early data obtained with animals (for example, Greenberg and Copp2) and would now appear to be considerably too low for the adult man.
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References
Brit. J. Radiol., Supp. 6, 37 (1955).
Greenberg, D. M. T., and Copp, D. H., J. Biol. Chem., 169, 377 (1946).
Moore, C. V., J. Clin. Nutr., 3, 3 (1955).
Callender, S. T., Mallett, B. J., and Smith, M. D., Brit. J. Hæmat., 3, 186 (1957).
Callender, S. T., Brit. Med. Bull., 15, 5 (1959).
Dubach, R., Callender, S. T., and Moore, C. V., Blood, 3, 526 (1948).
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OLIVER, R., LAJTHA, L. Biological Half-Life of Radioiron in Man. Nature 184, 1882 (1959). https://doi.org/10.1038/1841882a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/1841882a0
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