DURHAM, N.C. -- In the event of a nuclear or radiological catastrophe -- such as a nuclear accident or a dirty bomb -- thousands of people would be exposed to radiation, with no way of quickly determining how much of the deadly substance has seeped inside their bodies. Scientists at Duke University Medical Center have developed a new blood test to rapidly detect levels of radiation exposure so that potentially life-saving treatments could be administered to the people who need them most.
There appears to be a critical window of 48 to 72 hours for administering treatments aimed at halting the devastating effects of radiation, said senior study investigator John Chute, M.D., an associate professor of medicine in the Duke Adult Bone Marrow and Stem Cell Transplant Program. But existing tests for measuring radiation exposure take several days and are not practical for testing large numbers of patients at once.
If a terrorist attack involving radioactive material were to occur, hospitals might be overrun with people seeking treatment, many of whom have actually been exposed and many of whom are simply panicked, Chute said. We have to be able to efficiently screen a large number of people for radiation exposure in order to respond effectively to a mass casualty event.
The new test scans thousands of genes from a blood sample to identify distinct genomic signatures reflecting varying radiation doses. Patients can then be handled according to whether they received no exposure to radiation, an intermediate level of exposure that may respond to medical therapies or an inevitably lethal dose.
The researchers published their findings April 3, 2007, in the journal Public Library of Science (PLoS) Medicine. The research was funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
High doses of radiation can damage or wipe out a persons blood and immune systems, leading in some cases to bone marrow failure accompan
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Contact: Marla Vacek Broadfoot
marla.broadfoot@duke.edu
919-660-1306
Duke University Medical Center
2-Apr-2007