EPA publish model to evaluate drinking water ingestion for radionuclides, but EPA does not publish model to quantify cancer risk from dermal exposure to radioactive contaminants in water. Please suggest
Your question addresses drinking water, but in the explanation you refer simply to water. EPA would not address drinking water dermal exposure since to qualify as drinking water contaminants must be below a given level. Non-drinking water dermal exposure is another situation, nevertheless, upper limits on solubility will limit the amount of radionuclides. Levels of concern of radionuclides are chemistry restricted. In general, high dose rate solutions require a non-radioactive carrier of the same element and compound.
Few elements are of concern by dermal exposure. The elements may deposit on the skin, but do not traverse the dermal boundary (tritium is an exception). Exposure to radioactive elements is, for non-traversing radionuclides, a skin exposure. The dose to be considered is the skin, beta dose. There are various calculation methods for skin dose, e.g., VARSKIN, that will estimate the dose. Cancer risk may be calculated from the estimated dose.
See Keith F. Eckerman and Jeffrey C. Ryman, External exposure to radionuclides in air, water, and soil. Federal Guidance Report No. 12. EPA-402-R-93-081, US EPA, Washington, DC, 1993:
http://www.epa.gov/radiation/federal/techdocs.html#report12
Complementing Viktor's answer. You can review ICRP 119 (Compendium of Dose Coefficients based on ICRP Publication 60. ICRP Publication 119. Ann. ICRP 41(s), 2012. K. Eckerman, J. Harrison, H-G. Menzel, C.H. Clement). The same coefficients calculated in FGR12 are used there but with ICRP 60 considerations for organs and weighting factors. Just look for the factors considering exposure to skin due to the immersion in contaminated water. If your exposure scenario is different or the radionuclides of your interest are not included you would need a different solution. In such a case email me privately.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Linguistics
- Composition Studies
- Publication