When an acute internal esposure to plutonium occurs, a number of problems arise for consideration by the treating physician and the attending physicist.-4 recent plutonium wound incident a t Hanford involving the laceration of an employee's arm by plutonium fragments, has again emphasized these problems and the need for great care in wound and patient management, both from a medical and physical standpoint. This paper describes the methods of wound management including surgical removal of the plutonium, use of chelating agents, the methods of evaluating the residual deposition of plutonium, and hopefully indicates areas of needed research.

The first whole-body analysis of the U.S. Transuranium Registry was initiated in 1979. The donor was a 49-yr-old male Caucasian radiochemist who died of metastatic malignant melanoma. The donor had a recognized, longstanding 241Am internal deposition first identified in a routine urine sample in 1958. A summary of the clinical and postmortem findings is presented with the chronologic sequence of the procedures.

During the summer of 1968, the Atomic Energy Commission authorized the establishment of the U.S. Transuranium Registry. The Registry is part of the organizational structure of the Hanford Environmental Health Foundation and is, in essence, a repository for all pertinent information available to identify any radiation hazard to the worker that may exist from exposure to transuranium elements. The major AEC contractors and a few of the licensees using plutonium and other transuranium elements have agreed to endorse and recommend that their affected employees support this program. Cooperation with the Registry is individually voluntary and includes release of medical and health physics data, and permission for postmortem analysis of certain organs.

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