AUTORADIOGRAPHY 





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Fig. 1. Autoradiogram of stained section of 

 human sputum illustrating diffuse alpha-track 

 pattern of plutonium in solution. {Courtesy Stain 

 Technology^) . 



contaminated skin biopsy (4) were auto- 

 radiographed by the above processing 

 method. All of the two-hundred fifty indi- 

 vidual skin sections were scanned in a thin 

 window alpha detector. Radioanalysis 

 showed that the entire skin biopsy specimen 

 contained 0.0046 microcurie and the indi- 

 vidual sections varied from to 362 disinte- 

 grations per minute. The appearance of one 

 autoradiogram of a human skin section is 

 illustrated in Figure 3, in which alpha tracks 

 may be seen arising from particles. In addi- 

 tion, random alpha tracks may be seen. 



Suggested Autoradiographic Tech- 

 niques for Beta Emitters; I^^S Ru^**^, 



Sr«o, and P^^ 



I^^i, with an eight day half -life, is predomi- 

 nantly a beta emitter with some gamma 

 emission. It was administered to sheep in an 

 acute and chronic feeding experiment (5) to 



determine the effect of radioiodine on the 

 thyroid gland of grazing animals. The auto- 

 radiographic response of the thyroids of 

 some of these animals is of interest. 



Thyroid samples were routinely fixed in 

 Bouin's solution for from 8 to 12 hours, fol- 

 lowed by dehydration in "Cellosolve" and nor- 

 mal parafl&n embedding. Adjacent sections 

 were selected from the ribbons. One section 

 was stained routinely with hematoxylin and 

 eosin; the other was floated into a crystalliz- 

 ing dish containing distilled water, from 

 which it was floated onto a slide bearing a 5 

 fj. NTB emulsion plus a protective "T" coat. 

 The slides, for animals which had received 

 100 nc P'^^ I.V. and which were sacrificed 

 after 1 hour were then exposed for 5 days; 

 the slides from animals receiving 100 nc I.V. 

 in 0.9% saline and sacrificed after 4 hours 

 were exposed for 53-^ days ; and slides for ani- 



FiG. 2. Autoradiogram of stained section of 

 human sputum illustrating star formation of alpha 

 tracks originating from plutonium particle in cen- 

 tral position. {Courtesy Stain Technology^). 



