RBE VS. DOSE FOR LOW DOSES OF HIGH-LET RADIATIONS

(LET) radiations varies with cellular radiosensitivity parameters and the radiation environment. Of special interest is that the RBE varies as the dose of high-LET radiation to the power (1/m - 1) where /m is the “target number” parameter, which varies from 2-4 in different cell lines. This applies to neutrons as well as to heavy ions at sufficiently low doses such that cells are not activated in the γ-kill mode; that is, the tracks of single heavy ions are sufficiently far apart so that there are few cases of inter-track inactivation