A reflection on medical treatment of radionuclide-contaminated wounds during medical response to nuclear emergencies / 中国辐射卫生

ABSTRACT

Radionuclide-contaminated wounds are common in medical response to nuclear emergencies, which have different manifestations in different types of accidents. Medical treatment is the key part of the response. Based on the drill experience gained from medical response to nuclear emergencies, the authors summarize the research advances in radionuclide-contaminated wounds in recent years, mainly involving the biokinetic characteristics, medical response, surgical debridement, and prevention and treatment of internal contamination of radionuclide-contaminated wounds; the authors summarize the key points of technical operations and provide suggestions on improvements in the drills. The authors believe that medical treatment of radionuclide-contaminated wounds requires highly compatible integration of the practical skills from clinical medicine and radiological knowledge; emergency response, surgical debridement, and prevention and treatment of internal contamination all together constitute an integrated rescue and treatment strategy with internal logic correlations. However, targeted improvements are needed to achieve desired effects in the drills.