부산대학교 도서관

The ventral thoracic skin of hamsters was irradiated with either single, split (two fractions given in 24 hr), or multiple (five fractions given daily) exposures of X rays or accelerated carbon ions using a 4-cm spread Bragg peak. Animals were positioned in the heavy-ion beam so that the ventral thoracic skin surface was 1 cm distal to the proximal peak of the modified beam. Early skin reactions from 6 to 30 days postirradiation were assessed. Using the average skin reactions produced in this period, it was found that the relative biological effect (RBE) for single doses of carbon ions was about 1.6 (5-17 Gy per fraction), for two fractions about 1.8 (5-17 Gy per fraction), and for five fractions about 1.9 (2.4-7.2 Gy per fraction). The fractional amount of sublethal damage repaired after carbon ion irradiation was about 0.3 (at dose levels of 2.4-8.0 Gy per fraction) compared to a value of about 0.45 (at dose levels of 60-13.0 Gy per fraction) found for the fractionated X irradiations, indicating about a 33% decrease in the relative amount of sublethal damage repaired after carbon ion irradiation in this position in the spread Bragg curve. Also, data were interpreted using plots of the reciprocal total dose needed to produce a given level of skin damage versus the dose per fraction used in the multifraction experiments, and of the RBE versus dose per fraction obtained from a nonparametric analysis of the responses. These approaches allow estimation of RBE at dose levels relevant to the clinical situation. Also, estimation may be made of the maximum permissible RBE by using the zero dose intercept value from the linear reciprocal dose plot. With this approach, the RBE at a dose level of 2 Gy is about 2.5 and the maximum RBE value is about 2.7.