@article{46ee06f46d9d4b509e8ca068fa09817c,
title = "Radioactivity and radionuclides in deciduous teeth formed before the Fukushima-Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident",
abstract = "The Fukushima-Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (FNPP) accident in March of 2011 released substantial amounts of radionuclides into the environment. We collected 4,957 deciduous teeth formed in children before the Fukushima accident to obtain precise control data for teeth formed after the accident. Radioactivity was measured using imaging plates (IP) and epidemiologically assessed using multivariate regression analysis. Additionally, we measured 90Sr, 137Cs, and natural radionuclides which might be present in teeth. Epidemiological studies of IP showed that the amount of radioactivity in teeth from Fukushima prefecture was similar to that from reference prefectures. We found that artificial radionuclides of 90Sr and 137Cs, which were believed to have originated from past nuclear disasters, and natural radionuclides including 40 K and daughter nuclides in the 238U and 232Th series contributed to the generation of radioactivity in teeth. We also found no evidence to suggest that radionuclides originating from the FNPP accident significantly contaminated pre-existing teeth. This is the first large-scale investigation of radioactivity and radionuclides in teeth. The present findings will be indispensable for future studies of teeth formed after the FNPP accident, which will fall out over the next several years and might be more contaminated with radionuclides.",
author = "Atsushi Takahashi and Mirei Chiba and Akira Tanahara and Jun Aida and Yoshinaka Shimizu and Toshihiko Suzuki and Shinobu Murakami and Kazuma Koarai and Takumi Ono and Toshitaka Oka and Joji Ikeyama and Osamu Kaneko and Makoto Unno and Kimiharu Hirose and Takashi Ohno and Yasushi Kino and Tsutomu Sekine and Ken Osaka and Keiichi Sasaki and Hisashi Shinoda",
note = "Funding Information: We appreciate the cooperation of dentists in Fukushima and reference prefectures regarding the collection of deciduous teeth. We also thank the donors of the deciduous teeth from all over Japan. We thank Dr. Fei Tyou and Ms. Yuka Takahashi for valuable technical assistance with IP sample preparation. We would thank Editage (www. editage.com) for English language editing. This work was supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research [No: 15H05055(B), 26463155(C), 18K09906(C), and 19K10458(C)], Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research [No: 25670891, 26670898, and 16K15849], Grant for Special Project Research [No: H24-A-12, H25-A-11, H26-B-79, and H27-B-58] from the International Research Institute of Disaster Science, Tohoku University, Japan (2012-2015) and the Budget for the Study on the Health Effects of Radiation, Ministry of the Environment, Government of Japan (2014-2016, and 2017-2019). Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2021, The Author(s).",
year = "2021",
month = dec,
doi = "10.1038/s41598-021-89910-0",
language = "English",
volume = "11",
journal = "Scientific Reports",
issn = "2045-2322",
publisher = "Nature Publishing Group",
number = "1",
}