Accumulation of Strontium-90 into Human Fetal Teeth and Bone. ∗

Summary

The strontium-90 content of mandibular bone and tooth buds of 73 fetuses aborted in the St. Louis metropolitan area between 1961 and 1966 has been correlated with the mother's dietary intake of the nu-clide. The data obtained during increasing and decreasing periods of fallout may be expressed by a linear equation, C_B = K C_D-6 ^M, where C_B is fetal bone Sr-90/g Ca, C_D-6 ^m is the mother's dietary strontium-90 intake for the first 6 months of pregnancy and K is a constant equal to 0.21. The equation is useful to calculate the amount of strontium-90 accumulating in fetal calcined tissues from known milk strontium-90 values or conversely, to obtain data concerning the mother's dietary strontium-90 intake when fetal strontium-90 values are known.