Combined Injuries Added to Acute and Chronic Effects of Radiation Exposure: Both Medical Radiotherapy and Radiation Environmental Radiation Exposure

Combined injuries to humans, who also are exposed to ionizing irradiation, produce a worse outcome. Another type of injury includes both obvious (thermal burn) and nonobvious (psychological stress) sources. The obvious ones include thermal burn, penetrating wounds, fracture, infection, overpressure injury, and concussion. Nonobvious consequences include polypharmacy or drugs that person is taking for each individual, which preceded radiation exposure and psychological stress. People taking medications on a chronic basis for medical conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, arthritis, or short-term medications for a chronic infection or anti-inflammatory capacity may interact with radiation and with the countermeasures being used to lessen the consequences of irradiation. A complicated approach in the setting of mass casualties from a radiation event must consider the safety of any countermeasure that is delivered given the large number of complicating factors.