Distribution of thorium in human tissues

Neutron activation followed by simple radiochemical separation was employed to determine the concentration of thorium (232Th) in different human tissues. The median232Th concentrations (ng/g) in tissues with ranges given in parentheses are lymph nodes: 64.7 (31.4–85.5), lungs: 9.2 (1.5–16.0), hair: 5.2 (2.9–11.0), kidney: 1.7 (0.9–4.0), liver: 0.9 (0.2–4.9) and blood 0.01 (0.006–0.030). The reliability of analysis was tested by analyzing standard reference material Orchard Leaves (US, NBS).