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Fact Sheet on Many persons have died unstudied or could yield data after death which was inaccessible during life. When such cases are of special interest, we seek permission to exhume their remains. To date, we have exhumed 117 c a s e s , 111 with radium exposure, 3 with plutonium exposure, 1 with thorium exposure, and 2 controls. Most of these cases had unknown body burdens a t the time of exhumation and many of the radium c a s e s had a history of bone sarcoma or sinus or mastoid carcinoma. The 117 exhumations which have been completed are summarized i n the table below. Female radium dial workers first exposed before 1930 Medical exposure t o radium Radium laboratory workers --21000 < l o 0 0 To be measured Exhumations are currently being sought for 83 c a s e s , 79 with radium exposure and 4 with plutonium exposure.
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The principal reasons for selecting these cases were that there was little or no body burden information and that: (1) their names appear on unselective lists of employees, (2) their death certificates indicate causes of death which might be radium related, such a s bone sarcoma, sinus or mastoid carcinoma, central nervous system tumor or other suggestive pathology, (3) they were injected with known amounts of radium and thus can b e used to improve our knowledge of radium metabolism and skeletal dosimetry, or (4)they received plutonium injections and can b e used to study plutonium metabolism and skeletal dosimetry in man. Although permission to exhume is not always granted, our success rate h a s been high i n recent years. Since 1 9 7 1 , permission has been granted by all of the next-of-kin in about 40% of the c a s e s Possible radium-related causes of death Female radium dial workers first exposed before 1930 60 16 Medical exposure to radium Radium laboratory workers