Popular Medicines as Radiation Sensors

During an uncontrolled release of radiation, it is highly unlikely that members of the public will be equipped with personal radiation dose monitors. In preparation for such a situation various personal objects are being investigated as emergency dosimeters. The already developed methods are not satisfactory, as they are time-consuming or require destruction of things valuable for victims. Here we show, that common pharmaceuticals, which frequently may be found e.g. in personal bags, are the perfect candidate as radiation sensors in emergencies. We investigated several over-the-counter medicines for occurrence of the optically stimulated luminescence phenomenon and found that all of them exhibit strong luminescence signal following exposure to ionizing radiation. Its intensity increases linearly with the absorbed dose. The highest sensitivity was shown by the popular painkillers based on ibuprofen and paracetamol. The intensity of their luminescence signal was found to enable measurement of doses well below 1 Gy, what is sufficient for application in emergency dosimetry. Pharmaceuticals are also free of all disadvantages of other emergency dosimeters: their composition is standardized, sampling is immediate, the unit value is usually negligible. We expect our results to be a starting point for broader investigations of various medicines, which should provide a perfect tool for emergency dosimetry.