Relationship between Dose of Injected 239 Pu and Bone Sarcoma Mortality in Young Adult Beagles

The effect of /sup 239/Pu on bone sarcoma mortality in young adult beagles is examined using data from a follow-up study conducted at the Radiobiology Laboratory at the University of Utah. A (proportional-hazards) model, which specifies that bone sarcoma mortality depends on both dose of injected plutonium and time since injection as the product of a dose factor and a time factor, is used both for describing the data and for performing inference about the relationship between dose of plutonium and bone sarcoma mortality. Relative bone sarcoma mortality rates are found to be approximately linear as a function of dose. There is evidence that relative bone sarcoma mortality decreases with time since injection.