Estimates of Numbers of Civilians Treated with Nasopharyngeal Radium Irradiation in the United States

Abstract

Nasopharyngeal radium irradiation was used 35 to 50 years ago for treatment of hearing loss, chronic ear infections, asthma, and other conditions. I reviewed the medical literature for published articles on the nonmilitary use of nasopharyngeal radium irradiation. Four years have minimum documented numbers of radium applicators in use (1946, 600; 1948, 1000; 1958, 2000; 1961, 2000). Two levels of physician use were assumed, a high estimate of 25 patients per week and a low estimate of 5 patients per week. It was assumed that physicians used the applicators 50 weeks per year. Typical treatments involved two applicators at a time (one for each nostril) for three sessions. Using a formula reflecting the number of applicators in use, the number of patients a physician would treat in a week, the number of weeks in a year an applicator would be used, and the number of applicators and sessions per patient. I then estimated the number of children who might have been treated. This estimate is that approximately 500,000 to 2.5 million persons might have been treated with nasopharyngeal radium. Because the lack of documentation for numerous parts of the equation required that I make a large number of assumptions, this estimate should be considered a rough approximation of the number of civilians treated.