ABSTRACT
During the 1991 Gulf War, several US fighting vehicles were hit by friendly-fire munitions containing depleted uranium (DU). Soldiers in or near the vehicles were exposed to airborne DU, and some were left with embedded fragments of DU in their tissues. Considerable information on the biokinetics of Uranium (U) in humans and laboratory animals has been published since the 1940s. Information available through the early 1990s is reflected in physiologically based biokinetic models published by the International Commission on Radiological Protection. These models describe the respiratory and systemic behavior of forms of U commonly encountered in the workplace or environment. Inhaled uranium may enter the gastrointestinal tract after being transported to the pharynx along with fluids escalating along the airways. Fractional absorption of the swallowed U to blood cannot be determined directly due to simultaneous absorption from the respiratory tract but can be estimated from studies of absorption of U after oral intake.
