Health
New tools approved against radiation contamination
NEWS IN BRIEF — Posted Sept. 6, 2004
The Food and Drug Administration recently approved two drugs that are used to treat certain kinds of radiation contamination.
Pentetate calcium trisodium injection, or Ca-DTPA, and pentetate zinc trisodium injection, or Zn-DTPA, have been used as investigational drugs for several decades to treat patients in radiation contamination emergencies that might occur in laboratory or industrial accidents. Both are used to treat internal contamination with plutonium, americium or curium, which could also result from terrorist attacks using a radiation dispersal device known as a "dirty bomb."
The FDA cautioned that both drugs should not be administered simultaneously. If both are available to a physician, Ca-DTPA should be given as the first dose and the treatment switched to Zn-DTPA if additional treatment is needed.
Both drugs are generally administered into the blood stream. However, in people whose contamination is only by inhalation, they can be administered by nebulized inhalation.
The two join potassium iodide, or KI, as tools used in the event of radiation exposure. Potassium iodide reduces the risk of thyroid cancer by flooding the thyroid with non-radioactive iodine, thus preventing the thyroid's uptake of radioactive molecules.
Note: This item originally appeared at http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2004/09/06/hlbf0906.htm.
