Biological effects of accelerated heavy ions. I. Single doses in normal tissue, tumors, and cells in vitro.

To characterize beams of possible use in radiotherapy, the survival of jejunal crypt cells, EMT 6 tumor cells in flank tumors, and hypoxic and euoxic EMT 6 tumor cells in vitro was studied following irradiation in beams of accelerated helium, carbon, neon, or argon ions. The beams were modified with a variable-thickness absorber to give a 4-cm spread out Bragg peak (SOBP) and therefore approximated the kind of beam geometry anticipated for the clinical application of high-LET beams. The RBE was higher in cells in the EMT 6 tumor than in the gut, and higher for hypoxic cells than for euoxic cells. The RBE increased with increasing LET up to approximately 100 keV/μm. The RBE was higher for the peak region than for the plateau region of the helium, carbon, and neon beams leading to a favorable biological depth-dose distribution measured as the peak-to-plateau RBE ratio. The argon beam had an unfavorable peak-to-plateau RBE ratio. The relationship of RBE and LET for these biological systems was similar to tha...

[1]  E. Blakely,et al.  Impaired repair capacity of DNA breaks induced in mammalian cellular DNA by accelerated heavy ions. , 1979, Radiation research.

[2]  L. Goldstein,et al.  Enhancement by fractionation of biological peak-to-plateau relative biological effectiveness ratios for heavy ions. , 1978, International journal of radiation oncology, biology, physics.

[3]  E. Malaise,et al.  Measurement of RBE, OER, and recovery of potentially lethal damage of a 645 MeV helium ion beam using EMT6 cells. , 1977, Radiation research.

[4]  M. Ritter,et al.  High-LET radiations induce a large proportion of non-rejoining DNA breaks , 1977, Nature.

[5]  H. Rossi Letter: A note on the effects of fractionation of high LET radiations. , 1976, Radiation research.

[6]  E. Hall,et al.  Split-dose experiments with hypoxic cells. Implications for fractionated and low-dose-rate radiotherapy. , 1974, Radiology.

[7]  C. Tobias Pretherapeutic investigations with accelerated heavy ions. , 1973, Radiology.

[8]  L. F. Fajardo,et al.  Characteristics of a serially transplanted mouse mammary tumor and its tissue-culture-adapted derivative. , 1972, Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

[9]  P. Todd Fractionated heavy ion irradiation of cultured human cells. , 1968, Radiation research.

[10]  H. Kaplan Evidence for a tumoricidal dose level in the radiotherapy of Hodgkin's disease. , 1966, Cancer research.

[11]  L. Tolmach,et al.  A Multicomponent X-ray Survival Curve for Mouse Lymphosarcoma Cells irradiated in vivo , 1963, Nature.

[12]  J. Lyman,et al.  Dosimetry and instrumentation for helium and heavy ions. , 1977, International journal of radiation oncology, biology, physics.

[13]  H. Withers,et al.  Microcolony survival assay for cells of mouse intestinal mucosa exposed to radiation. , 1970, International journal of radiation biology and related studies in physics, chemistry, and medicine.

[14]  P. Todd,et al.  Heavy charged particles in cancer therapy. , 1967, National Cancer Institute monograph.