15

For the purpose of comparison, the fractional transfer of inhaled long-lived radionuclidea to
blood in the model of Publication 30 can be expressed in a manner analogous to that of
Publication 2:

Frwtbmal transfer d &&Id r&&y to bbod

lor Iomg-IIved ra&mmcIIdta

Publication 2 Publication 30
Class Fraction Class Fraction

Soluble 0.25 + 0.50 fl D 0.48 + 0.15 f,

Insoluble not considered W 0.12 + 0.51 f,
Y 0.05 + 0.58 f,

For soluble compounds with small f, values, the new model results in a higher transfer of activity to
blood for class D compounds (0.48 vs 0.25), and a lower transfer for class W compounds. If fi lies
near I, the two approaches predict comparable transfers for class D and class W materials.

For insoluble materials, a useful measure of the committed dose equivalent to the lung itself is
the time integral of the retained inhaled activity, normalized relative to the initial intake:

soA(t) dt .

A(t) is the activity in the lungs at time t, and the activity & is inhaled at t - 0. In Publication 2
it was assumed that half of any insoluble radionuciide initially retained in the lower respiratory
tract, i.e., l/8 of the inhaled activity, was eliminated from it exponentially with a half-life of 120
days for all nuclides except plutonium (I year) and thorium (4 years). The treatment of lung
clearance in the new model is more complex, but the value of the integral in equation (I 1) depends
only on the clearance class (ignoring physical decay). For a long-lived radionuclide, the time
integrals of the normalized retention for the two models can be compared as:

Publication 2 Publication 30
Material Integral Class Integral
(days+) (days+)

Thorium 263 D 0.22

Plutonium 66 W I2
Other 22 Y 230
*Units: PCidays per PCi inhaled-i.e., days.