Estimation of Uranium Concentration of Cancer Patients' Blood in Babylon Province, Iraq

Radioactive pollution is caused when radioactive materials are deposited in the environment or atmosphere, particularly when their presence is inadvertent, and poses harm to the environment owing to the radioactive decay of the radioactive elements. Exposure to uranium in the workplace or environment can damage cells and increase cancer risk. Uranium, a heavy metal of the actinide family, has negative consequences due to its chemical and radioactive toxicity. The fission-track method with CR-39 evaluated the uranium content in blood samples collected from healthy persons and cancer patients. This method counted the fission tracks in a detector after the nuclear reaction. The data reveal that the lowest value in the group of people with cancer is 1.84±0.36 ppb, while the highest is 2.95±0.32 ppb. This population has an average uranium content of 2.52± 0.32 ppb. The highest result was 1.88± 0.22 ppb, while the lowest was 0.39±0.15 ppb in the healthy group. This population has a mean uranium content of 1.09±0.27 ppb. The statistics show that the uranium content in cancer patients' blood is much higher than that in the blood of healthy individuals.