Abstract
Radiopharmaceuticals represent an attractive and efficient treatment of oncological diseases. Medical radionuclide use might bring a particular safety issue with penetration of a radioactive material into environment via urinal and colonal excretion.
Therefore, the waste water cleaning and decontamination of food chain ought to be studied. Radium-223 is FDA and EMA approved therapeutic radionuclide for the treatment of bone metastases originating from castration resistant prostate cancer.
Its introduction to clinical praxis opened the possibility of Radium retention and translocation into roots and shoot plant parts in the ecosystem. Though 223Ra uptake was investigated in vitro on cultivated plants Avena sativa and Zea mays using electronic autoradiography.
Stimulators (Atonik(R), Racine(R), Rexan(R), Sunagreen(R), Stimulator Z(R)) increasing the water transport, the plant stress management additives (Vermaktiv Stimul(R) and Vermaktiv RP(R)), together with the chelating agent ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) were added to the cultivars. Results of plants growth without any regulators indicate over 90% uptake of 223Ra in root system with minimal translocation into other parts.
An addition of growth regulators decreased the overall uptake, however significantly increased Radium translocation into shoot parts. Surprisingly, an addition of EDTA decreases the overall retention in oat under the lowest detectable limit, nevertheless an increased translocation to shoot parts was observed.
Experiments reveal potential of phytoextraction technologies for waste water cleaning in hospitals, on the other hand, indicates possibility of food chain contamination particularly when growth regulators were used.