Dose-response relationships for chromosome aberrations in peripheral blood lymphocytes after whole- and partial-body irradiations. II. Decline of aberration-carrying cells in blood with time post-exposure.

Dicentric yield and fractionation of damaged metaphases and lymphocyte count were followed for an interval of up to 3 months in rabbits after partial- and whole-body irradiations. Some partial-body exposures led to less-pronounced decline of the lymphocyte count in peripheral blood than others; in the former case the reduction of dicentric yield in peripheral blood lymphocytes over the first 24 h post exposure was significantly faster than in the latter. The decline was also faster than after uniform whole-body irradiation where it was virtually absent. However, the results suggest that, after whole-body exposures, the decline of the fraction of damaged metaphases with post-exposure time was much slower than that of the dicentric yield.