Isolation of the effects of alpha-related components from total effects of radium at low doses.

Purpose: Radium is the most common source of alpha radiation exposure to humans and non-human species in the environment but the dosimetry is complicated by the decay chain which involves gamma exposure due to radon daughters. This paper seeks to determine the separate contributions of alpha and gamma doses to the total dose and total direct and non-targeted effect in a fish and a human cell line.

Materials And Methods: This study aimed to isolate the effect of alpha particles following exposure to low doses of radium in cells, and their progeny which received no further exposure.