Analysis of cell-survival fractions for heavy-ion irradiations based on microdosimetric kinetic model implemented in the particle and heavy ion transport code system.

It is considered that the linear energy transfer (LET) may not be the ideal index for expressing the relative biological effectiveness (RBE) of cell killing for heavy-ion irradiation, as the ion-species dependencies have clearly been observed in the relation between LET and RBE derived from cell-survival fraction data. The previously measured survival fractions of four cell lines irradiated by various ion species, employing the saturation-corrected dose-mean lineal energy, y*, instead of LET as the index of the RBE were therefore re-analysed. In the analysis, the initial slopes of the survival fractions, the so-called α-parameter in the linear-quadratic model, were plotted as a function of y*, which was calculated by the microdosimetric kinetic (MK) model implemented in the Particle and Heavy Ion Transport code System. It was found from the analysis that the ion-species dependencies observed in the relations between α and LET disappeared from those between α and y*, and their relations can be well reproduced by a simple equation derived from the MK model. These results clearly indicate the suitability of y* to be used in the estimation of the RBE of cell killing for heavy-ion irradiations, which is of great importance in the treatment planning of charged-particle therapy.

Reduction in life span of normal human fibroblasts exposed to very low-dose-rate charged particles.

We studied the effect of chronic low-dose irradiation with heavy ions on the life span of normal human fibroblasts in vitro. Cells were cultured in a CO2 incubator that was placed in the irradiation room for biological studies of heavy ions in the Heavy Ion Medical Accelerator in Chiba (HIMAC) at National Institute of Radiological Sciences (NIRS) and were exposed to scattered radiations produced by heavy-ion beams for the life span of the cell population. The absorbed dose, which was measured using a thermoluminescence dosimeter (TLD) and a silicon semiconductor detector, was 1.4 mGy per day when the HIMAC was operated for biological experiments. The total number of population doublings of the exposed cells as reduced to 79-93% of that of nonexposed control cells. However, the life span of cells exposed to low-dose 137Cs gamma rays (approximately 1 mGy/day) in the CO2 incubator in the gamma-irradiation room in NIRS was prolonged to 104-106% of that of nonexposed control cells. Thus there is evidence that exposure to chronic low-dose heavy-ion radiation reduces the life span of cells.