The assessment of organ doses from plutonium for an epidemiological study of the Sellafield workforce

An epidemiological study of mortality and cancer rates in plutonium workers at the Sellafield nuclear installation has been carried out by researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. The study required the assessment of organ-specific doses from plutonium for more than 5000 workers over a period of 40 years. This was a major undertaking as it involved the reconstruction of annual received doses from the results of some 223 000 urine samples that had been provided by the workers in the study. This paper outlines the techniques and strategies adopted in order to generate best estimates of dose from the available data, and presents summaries of these doses.