Radiation Dose-Response Models

In studying radiation responses, there are primarily two motivations. One motivation is to learn the basic mechanisms involved in the response of living tissue to radiation. The other, but not altogether different motivation, is to learn what response is likely in a human when a patient is irradiated for therapeutic (or diagnostic) purposes. Clearly these objectives are not mutually exclusive. However, both the investigators and the methods they employ are likely to be different for the two arenas of investigation. The basic research is more likely to study the mechanisms of effects and less likely to be concerned with the quantification and prediction of effects. The more clinically oriented research is likely to work at the cellular level and above, whereas the basic research generally works at the cellular level and below. In Clinical research, investigators are often interested in modeling the responses to radiation so that these responses may be predicted.