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Radiation poisoning, also called "radiation sickness" or a "creeping dose", is a form of damage to organ tissue due to excessive exposure to ionizing radiation. The term is generally used to refer to acute problems caused by a large dosage of radiation in a short period, though this also has occurred with long-term exposure to low-level radiation.
This may result in infections, due to a low number of white blood cells, bleeding, due to a lack of platelets, and anemia, due to too few red blood cells in circulation. [3] These changes can be detected by blood tests after receiving a whole-body acute dose as low as 0.25 grays (25 rad ), though they might never be felt by the patient if the ...
This is due to the high relative biological effectiveness of alpha radiation to cause biological damage after alpha-emitting radioisotopes enter living cells. Ingested alpha emitter radioisotopes such as transuranics or actinides are an average of about 20 times more dangerous, and in some experiments up to 1000 times more dangerous than an ...
The risk of systemic infection is higher when the organism has a combined injury, such as a conventional blast, thermal burn, [3] or radiation burn. [2] There is a direct quantitative relationship between the magnitude of the neutropenia that develops after exposure to radiation and the increased risk of developing infection. Because no ...
Biomarkers of exposure are the actual chemicals, or chemical metabolites, that can be measured in the body or after excretion from the body to determine different characteristics of an organism’s exposure. For example, a person or fish’s blood can be tested to see the levels of lead and therefore determine the exposure.
A radiation burn is a damage to the skin or other biological tissue and organs as an effect of radiation. The radiation types of greatest concern are thermal radiation, radio frequency energy, ultraviolet light and ionizing radiation. The most common type of radiation burn is a sunburn caused by UV radiation.
Radioactive contamination can be due to a variety of causes. It may occur due to the release of radioactive gases, liquids or particles. For example, if a radionuclide used in nuclear medicine is spilled (accidentally or, as in the case of the Goiânia accident, through ignorance), the material could be spread by people as they walk around.
Radiation exposure through ionizing radiation (IR) affects a variety of processes inside of an exposed cell. IR can cause changes in gene expression, disruption of cell cycle arrest, and apoptotic cell death. The extent of how radiation effects cells depends on the type of cell and the dosage of the radiation.