Radiation accidents over the last 60 years.

Since the end of the Second World War, industrial and medical uses of radiation have been considerably increasing. Accidental overexposures of persons, in either the occupational or public field, have caused deaths and severe injuries and complications. The rate of severe accidents seems to increase with time, especially those involving the public; in addition, accidents are often not immediately recognised, which means that the real number of events remains unknown.

Radiation accidents: lessons learnt for future radiological protection.

Purpose: To review major radiation accidents that have occurred over a 50 year period. To identify common factors, since feedback may prevent recurrence.

Methods: Accidents are classified according to the difficulties involved in their management and to the delay between their occurrence and their recognition.

[Therapeutic approaches of hematopoietic syndrome following accidental total whole body irradiation].

Since the first radiation accidents which resulted in severe health effects in the workforce or the population, great progress has been made in the fields of diagnosis, prognosis and treatment of accidentally overexposed victims. Since then, progress has also been made in the medical management of diseases such as aplasia. Because of the relative scarcity of radiation accidents, there is a need for complementary researches, in order to take advantage of new techniques and medical approaches.

Haematopoietic growth factors in the treatment of therapeutic and accidental irradiation-induced bone marrow aplasia.

Bone marrow aplasia is one of the main syndromes following a high dose accidental exposure of ionizing radiation. Although both transfusion and bone marrow transplantation have been used with some success since the first treatments of patients, other therapeutic strategies are needed. The strategies involving haematopoietic growth factors for the treatment of radiation victims have been explored in vivo mainly in animal models and it is hoped that new therapeutic regimens will be elucidated from such approaches.