Simplified structure of a new model to describe urinary excretion of plutonium after systemic, liver or pulmonary contamination of rats associated with Ca-DTPA treatments.

This study validates, by targeted experiments, several modeling hypotheses for interpretation of urinary excretion of plutonium after Ca-DTPA treatments. Different formulations and doses of Ca-DTPA were administered to rats before or after systemic, liver or lung contamination with various chemical forms of plutonium. The biokinetics of plutonium was also characterized after i.v. injection of Pu-DTPA. Once formed, Pu-DTPA complexes are stable in most biological environments. Pu-DTPA present in circulating fluids is rapidly excreted in the urine, but 2-3% is retained, mainly in soft tissues, and is then excreted slowly in the urine after transfer to blood. Potentially, all intracellular monoatomic forms of plutonium could be decorporated after DTPA internalization involving slow urinary excretion of Pu-DTPA with half-lives varying from 2.5 to 6 days as a function of tissue retention. The ratio of fast to slow urinary excretion of Pu-DTPA depends on both plutonium contamination and Ca-DTPA treatment. Fast urinary excretion of Pu-DTPA corresponds to extracellular decorporation that occurs beyond a threshold of the free DTPA concentration in circulating fluids. Slow excretion corresponds mostly to intracellular decorporation and depends on the amount of intracellular DTPA. From these results, the structure of a simplified model is proposed for interpretation of data obtained with Ca-DTPA treatments after systemic, wound or pulmonary contamination by plutonium.