Mellinger-Birdsong A K
Division of Environmental Health Hazards and Effects, National Center for Environmental Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg. 1996 Nov;115(5):429-32. doi: 10.1177/019459989611500512.
Nasopharyngeal radium irradiation was used 35 to 50 years ago for treatment of hearing loss, chronic ear infections, asthma, and other conditions. I reviewed the medical literature for published articles on the nonmilitary use of nasopharyngeal radium irradiation. Four years have minimum documented numbers of radium applicators in use (1946, 600; 1948, 1000; 1958, 2000; 1961, 2000). Two levels of physician use were assumed, a high estimate of 25 patients per week and a low estimate of 5 patients per week. It was assumed that physicians used the applicators 50 weeks per year. Typical treatments involved two applicators at a time (one for each nostril) for three sessions. Using a formula reflecting the number of applicators in use, the number of patients a physician would treat in a week, the number of weeks in a year an applicator would be used, and the number of applicators and sessions per patient, I then estimated the number of children who might have been treated. This estimate is that approximately 500,000 to 2.5 million persons might have been treated with nasopharyngeal radium. Because the lack of documentation for numerous parts of the equation required that I make a large number of assumptions, this estimate should be considered a rough approximation of the number of civilians treated.
35至50年前，鼻咽部镭辐射被用于治疗听力损失、慢性耳部感染、哮喘及其他病症。我查阅了医学文献中关于鼻咽部镭辐射非军事用途的已发表文章。有使用镭敷贴器记录的最少年份为4年（1946年，600个；1948年，1000个；1958年，2000个；1961年，2000个）。假设了两种医生使用频率水平，高估计为每周25名患者，低估计为每周5名患者。假设医生每年使用敷贴器50周。典型治疗每次使用两个敷贴器（每个鼻孔一个），共进行三个疗程。通过一个反映使用中的敷贴器数量、医生每周治疗的患者数量、敷贴器每年使用的周数以及每位患者使用的敷贴器数量和疗程数的公式，我随后估算了可能接受治疗的儿童数量。该估算结果是，大约有50万至250万人可能接受过鼻咽部镭治疗。由于该公式的众多部分缺乏文献记录，我需要做出大量假设，所以这个估算应被视为对接受治疗的平民数量的粗略估计。
