Kávási Norbert, Kovács Tibor, Somlai János, Jobbágy Viktor, Nagy Katalin, Deák Eszter, Berhés István, Bender Tamás, Ishikawa Tetsuo, Tokonami Shinji
Research Center for Radiation Protection, National Institute of Radiological Sciences, 4-9-1 Anagawa, Inage, Chiba 263-8555, Japan.
Radiat Prot Dosimetry. 2011 Jul;146(1-3):27-30. doi: 10.1093/rpd/ncr099. Epub 2011 Apr 11.
Theoretically, the human body absorbs radon through the lungs and the skin and excretes it through the lungs and the excretory organs during radon bath therapy. To check this theory, the radon concentrations in urine samples were compared before and after radon bath therapy. During the therapy, the geometric mean (GM) and the geometric standard deviation of the radon concentration in air and in the bath water were 979 Bq m(-3), 1.58 and 73.6 Bq dm(-3), 1.1, respectively. Since radon was detected in each urine sample (GM around 3.0 Bq dm(-3)), urinary excretion of radon was confirmed. The results of this study can neither reject nor confirm the hypothesis of radon absorption through the skin. A 15 times higher increment of inhaled radon level did not cause significant changes in radon of urine samples.
