Measurements of (234)U and (238)U in hair, urine, and drinking water among drilled bedrock well water users for the evaluation of hair as a biomonitor of uranium intake.

Hair is evaluated and compared with urine as a biomonitor for human intake of uranium. Concentrations of U and U and the activity ratio between them are measured in the hair, urine, and drinking water of 24 drilled bedrock well water users in Östergötland, Sweden. The samples are measured with α-spectrometry after radiochemical preparation using liquid-liquid separation with tributylphosphate. The results show that there is a stronger correlation between the uranium concentrations in the drinking water of each subject and the hair of the subject (r = 0.50) than with the urine (r = 0.21). There is also a stronger correlation between the activity ratios of water and hair (r = 0.91) than between water and urine (r = 0.56). These results imply that hair may serve as a robust indicator of chronic uranium intake. One obvious advantage over sampling urine is that hair samples reflect a much longer excretion period: weeks compared to days. The absorbed fraction of uranium, the f value, is calculated as the ratio between the excreted amount of uranium in urine and hair per day and the daily drinking water intake of uranium. The f values stretch from 0.002 to 0.10 with a median of 0.023.