Expanding our knowledge of internal dosimetry – lung dosimetry

Radiation has been well studied since the discovery X rays in November 1895 (1). Its effects on the human body were seen soon after in the form of X-ray dermatitis that was observed in the USA (2). Becquerel’s (3) identification of radioactivity, and the subsequent discovery of radium (4), led to other cases of radiation damage as some of the radioactive materials were now being deposited internally. For example, it is well known that the radium dial painters employed before 1930 suffered large internal contaminations from ingesting radium when painting dials with radium paint (5) due to the unfortunate habit of licking the paint brush to obtain a fine point. The resulting body burdens were large and often resulted in bone cancers, some fatal.