Distribution and Removal of Monomeric and Polymeric Plutonium in Rats and Mice

Abstract

Mice and rats were injected intravenously with monomeric or polymeric ²³⁹Pu (IV). Both species deposited about three-quarters of the injected polymeric Pu and about one-third of the monomeric Pu in the liver. In bone, rats deposited approximately twice as much Pu as mice, 12 per cent versus 6 per cent of injected polymeric and about 60 per cent versus 24 per cent of monomeric Pu. By 12 days untreated rats had lost no Pu from bone, but about one-half of the monomeric Pu from liver. By 90 days the rat liver had lost one-half and the mouse liver one-quarter of the deposited polymeric Pu. DTPA-therapy in rats, from the third to the eleventh day, removed about one-half of both forms of Pu deposited in bone. From liver, DTPA removed all but 1·5 per cent of injected monomeric Pu, but none of the polymeric Pu. In rats which received the same experimental regimen, femurs and tibias had the same specific activity.