Neutron- and photon-activation detection limits in breast milk analysis for prospective dose evaluation of the suckling infant.

Complex situations related to the environment, as in the regions affected by the Chernobyl accident and regions in which nuclear weapons testing were undertaken, as in Semipalatinsk, could be reflected in the trace element content in mothers' milk. The evaluation of fractional transfer to milk of ingested or inhaled activity and of the corresponding dose coefficients for the infant, following a mothers' radioactive intake, can take advantage from wide-ranging studies of elemental and radionuclide contents in mothers' milk. In this work the possibility to determine elements, such as Ru, Zr, Nb, Te, Ce, Th, U, in milk powder has been investigated. Although results from elemental analyses of breast milk are to be found in the literature, the determination of the identified elements has attracted poor attention since they are not considered essential elements from a biological point of view. Nevertheless, in the case of radioactive releases to the environment, such data could be of interest in evaluation of dose to the breast-fed infant.

[Current ways of preventing postresectional bronchial fistulas in pulmonary tuberculosis].

The paper presents the data of a follow-up of 51 patients in whom a bronchial stump suture was additionally fixed at surgery by applying Tochocomb plates (in 30 patients) or an autoangiograft from the removed lung (in 21 patients) in order to prevent a bronchial fistula. The preliminary findings were positively appraised. The authors recommend that this procedure be used in phthisiosurgery and surgical pulmonology.