| This working data file set, prepared by The Center for Human Radiobiology (CHR) at the Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), consists of 25 files generated from the Internal Emitters Project, which identified about 6,000 people with significant radium exposures, including about 3,257 individuals, mostly women, who worked in the dial painting industry that used radium in paint. Many were located and followed until death; in these cases, the cause of death and body content of radium were known. One study was published in Health Physics in 1993. |
| The Center for Human Radiobiology Information System (CHRIS) is comprised of a set of files originally designed as working files, containing information that was continually being updated as new information was developed and new radiation exposure cases were added to the files. The program was terminated in 1990, so the files became static at that time. They, thus, show the state of the study at that date. |
| The CHR was originally set up in 1967 at the Argonne National Laboratory to continue the studies of radium-exposed individuals started by Professor. R. D. Evans in the mid-1930s at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). CHR was also to include the studies of radium-exposed individuals previously undertaken (1957 to 1967) by the New Jersey State Department of Health as the Radium Research Project and the radium studies undertaken in 1951 by The Argonne National Laboratory and the Argonne Cancer Research Hospital. The working files from these organizations were transferred to the CHR and eventually integrated into a file system known as the CHR Information System. |
| The level of detail for each individual in the study is not uniform, but there are some data on general demographics, smoking and social history, radium exposure history, measurements of radium body content, clinical examinations results, clinical laboratory results, observed medical abnormalities, calculated doses, radiographic surveys, and causes of death. |
| All of the files in the CHRIS system were originally set up for the collection of information about radium-exposed individuals. However, individuals exposed to other radioelements were often examined by CHR, and the data obtained were entered in CHRIS. Case numbers of the form aa-bbb (for example 00-001) were assigned to most of the individuals studied. The two digit prefix identifies people with some common characteristics. Originally these two digits indicated the laboratory where the case was studied, i.e., 00 was MIT, 03 was ANL, and 05 was New Jersey. Many of these original numbers remain, but the system was changed to indicate other characteristics. The present system reserves the prefixes 00 to 15 for individuals exposed to radium, 20 for uranium miners, 30 miscellaneous, 35 for Th-232 other than Thorotrast, 40 for Pu- 239, 50 for general controls, 51 to 59 for miscellaneous samples not identified with an individual case, 60 for Thorotrast cases, and 98 and 99 for temporary case numbers. |
| The 25 files comprising this data file set include data containing demographic, administrative, and exposure data (RADPDW01_d1 and RADPDW01_d6) , three files consisting of data concerning Lindsay Chemical Co. (RADPDW01_d2, RADPDW01_d3 , and RADPDW01_d25), radium deposition and retention data (RADPDW01_d7 and RADPDW01_d8), two dose calculation files (RADPDW01_d9 and RADPDW01_d10), a death certificate follow-up (RADPDW01_d4), government agency followup (RADPDW01_d5), radium deposition and retention data (RADPDW01_d9 and RADPDW01_d10), skeletal radiograph data (RADPDW01_d11), bone scan measurements (RADPDW01_d12), measurements of radium in vivo (RADPDW01_d13 and RADPDW01_d14), blood chemistry (RADPDW01_d15), urinalysis and hematology (RADPDW01_d16), special tests (RADPDW01_d17), physical measurements and medical/dental histories (RADPDW01_d18), data descriptive of the ranges of several variables (RADPDW01_d19), medical abnormalities (RADPDW01_d20), chemical and radiochemistry (RADPDW01_d21 and RADPDW01_d22), and gamma measurement data for bones and skeleton (RADPDW01_d23 and RADPDW01_d24). |
| Case numbers of the form L-nnnn (for example L-0001) were assigned to employees of the Lindsay Chemical Company. In addition, case numbers of the form LX-nnnn were used for visitors to the plant and LC-nnnn were used for controls. The data from this study of the effects of inhalation of dust containing Th-232 and daughter products, as well as rare earth elements, are contained in four files. These are RADPDW01_d2, RADPDW01_d3, RADPDW01_d25, and RADPDW01_d14. Additional information may be found in the files RADPDW01_d4, RADPDW01_d5, RADPDW01_d6, and RADPDW01_d20. |
| **NOTE** Data from n=23 individuals are masked due to privacy concerns. With the surpressed data excluded, the total cohort size is n=7,824. |
