Neutron-induced autoradiography is a useful investigative procedure to quantify and assess the distribution of fissile radionuclides within various forms of solid materials. While fission track analysis can be used primarly with urine, blood, and other liquified samples, neutron-induced autoradiography can be applied towards tissue and bone samples from an individual. The thinly sliced samples are placed adjacent to detectors such that the fission tracks are registered in the detector matrix. Then the tracks can be counted to determine the amount of radionuclide present and the whole detector shows a visual distribution of the radionuclide in the sample. Samples that are not rigid enough to maintain contact with a detector may be polymerized into a matrix to optimize packing procedures and maximize results.

Bone Comparison between American and Mayak (Russian) Plutonium Workers
The US worker (A) is on the left and the Mayak worker is in the middle (B) and on the right (C) with his respective neutron-induced autoradiographic (NIAR) and associated histology of the same bone section. The bone and marrow are denoted by 'b' and 'm', repectively.

Pu-239 Fission Tracks on Dog Bone
Most of the Plutonium collects at the bone surfaces (S) with some in the marrow and bone (B) itself.

Publications

• Comparisons of the skeletal locations of putative plutonium-induced osteosarcomas in humans with those in beagle dogs and with naturally occurring tumors in both species, Miller SC, Lloyd RD, Bruenger FW, Krahenbuhl MP, Polig E, Romanov SA., Radiat Res. 2003 Nov;160(5):517-23.
• Duration and dose-related effects of an orally administered, partially lipophilic polyaminocarboxylic acid on the decorporation of plutonium and americium, Miller SC, Bruenger FW, Kuswik-Rabiega G, Liu G, Lloyd RD., J Pharmacol Exp Ther. 1993 Oct;267(1):548-54.
  
• Microdistribution of 239Pu in the beagle skeleton, Polig E, Bruenger FW, Lloyd RD, Miller SC., Health Phys. 1998 Sep;75(3):251-8.
• A technique of neutron-induced (fission-track) autoradiography with histological detail, Smith JM, Taylor GN, Jee WS., Radiat Res. 1980 Dec;84(3):579-85.
• High resolution neutron-induced autoradiography of bone containing 239 Pu, Jee WS, Dell RB, Miller LG., Health Phys. 1972 Jun;22(6):761-3.