Scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory say one of the most common blood tests, a complete blood count, or CBC, holds clues about whether someone has been exposed to radiation.
What they did
The study was published in Communications Medicine. The team analyzed CBC results from 1,151 male and female mice of two lab strains. The mice were exposed to whole-body X-rays at doses from 0.05 to 4 Gy, and blood was drawn between 1 and 150 days afterward.
Using a "sparse representation learning" approach, the researchers picked out the most informative blood-count measures and built a model they call Sparse CBC.
How well it worked
In cross-validation, accuracy and sensitivity both topped 80%. The results were similar in a double-blind test on 431 more mice. When the researchers tested 1,720 mice from 35 genetically diverse strains, performance varied, which suggests genetics affects how well the model predicts.
Why it matters
Current ways of measuring radiation exposure rely on slow, expensive specialty lab tests. Because almost any clinic can run a CBC, researcher Jamie Inman told The Daily Californian the method could serve as a "fast, inexpensive first screening step." The clearest use would be a radiological or nuclear emergency, when large numbers of people need checking quickly.
Researcher Jian-Hua Mao's team has worked on the test since 2022. The group has studied the biological effects of radiation in mice for more than two decades.
The caveat: The results so far come from mice. The study doesn't show the model works in people yet.