Erratum to: Mutation induction by inhaled radon progeny modeled at the tissue level

Erratum to: Radiat Environ Biophys (2011) 50:553–570 DOI 10.1007/s00411-011-0382-9

During a recent development of the microdosimetry model originally presented in Madas and Balásházy (2011), an error was found which affects some results of the paper. The following numerical data should be changed:

The number of decays per unit surface varied in the simulations between 0 and 1.14 µm⁻² instead of 0 and 1.72 µm⁻². Correspondingly, the values on the lower x-axes of Figs. 8–14 in Madas and Balásházy (2011) should be divided by 1.51. The relationships between the upper x-axes and y-axes remain unchanged. However, the constant ratio of tissue dose and decay density is 7.47 Gy µm² instead of 4.96 Gy µm². Accordingly, the local epithelium dose per working level month (WLM) in the deposition hot spot should be computed by applying a factor of 19.7 Gy/WLM instead of 13.1 Gy/WLM. Therefore, 100 mSv effective dose caused by inhaled radon progeny means that some parts of the bronchial epithelium receive 131 Gy tissue dose instead of 87.3 Gy. In addition, 8 h of work in the New Mexico uranium mine [5.7 working level (WL)] results in a tissue dose of 5.29 Gy at the most heavily affected parts of the bronchial airways. As a result of this exposure, 50.6 % of basal and 98.9 % of ciliated cells are inactivated, and the total cell count decreases by 74.5 % in a small part of the tissue even if parameter set A used in Madas and Balásházy (2011) is applied.

In Madas and Balásházy (2011) it was proposed that local progenitor cell hyperplasia occurs beyond a threshold dose rate. This threshold in daily tissue dose remains unchanged: 2.25 Gy for parameter set A and 1.27 Gy for parameter set B. However, such tissue doses are the result of 8 h of exposure to a radon daughter concentration of 2.42 and 1.37 WL (instead of 3.65 and 2.06 WL), which corresponds to 0.214 and 0.121 mSv/h effective dose rate (instead of 0.322 and 0.182 mSv/h).

As most of the conclusions were drawn from the relationship between tissue dose rate and mutation induction rate, the consequences of the error affect only the conclusion related to the value of threshold exposure rate for hyperplasia induction.

Besides the error in the simulations, Eq. (12) should be read:

$$M_{\text{e}}^{*} \approx 0.045 \cdot \log \left( {1 + T/\tau } \right) + 5.99,$$

and Eq. (17) should be read:

$$M^{\text{total}} = \sum\limits_{i} {\frac{1}{T}} p_{\text{S}}^{i} \cdot \left( {{}^{i}M_{\text{e}} + {}^{i}M_{\text{r}} } \right) \approx \sum\limits_{i} {\frac{1}{T}} p_{\text{S}}^{i} \cdot \left( {0.045 \cdot \log \left( {1 + T/\tau } \right) + 5.99 + \beta \cdot D_{i} \cdot \left( {0.0375d \cdot \log \left( {1 + T/\tau } \right) + 0.0818d} \right)} \right)$$

The affiliation details of the authors has been changed as follows:

Environmental Physics Department, Centre for Energy Research, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Konkoly-Thege Miklós út 29-33, Budapest 1121, Hungary.