Interpreting the Biological Effects of Protons as a Function of Physical Quantity: Linear Energy Transfer or Microdosimetric Lineal Energy Spectrum?

Authors

Fada Guan
Lawrence Bronk
Matthew Kerr
Yuting Li
Leslie A Braby
Mary Sobieski
Xiaochun Wang
Xiaodong Zhang
Clifford Stephan
David R Grosshans
Radhe Mohan

Publication Date

10-24-2024

Journal

Scientific Reports

Abstract

The choice of appropriate physical quantities to characterize the biological effects of ionizing radiation has evolved over time coupled with advances in scientific understanding. The basic hypothesis in radiation dosimetry is that the energy deposited by ionizing radiation initiates all the consequences of exposure in a biological sample (e.g., DNA damage, reproductive cell death). Physical quantities defined to characterize energy deposition have included dose, a measure of the mean energy imparted per unit mass of the target, and linear energy transfer (LET), a measure of the mean energy deposition per unit distance that charged particles traverse in a medium. The primary advantage of using the "dose and LET" physical system is its relative simplicity, especially for presenting and recording results. Inclusion of additional information such as the energy spectrum of charged particles renders this approach adequate to describe the biological effects of large dose levels from homogeneous sources. The primary disadvantage of this system is that it does not provide a unique description of the stochastic nature of radiation interactions. We and others have used dose-averaged LET (LET

Keywords

Linear Energy Transfer, Protons, Humans, Relative Biological Effectiveness, Radiometry, Cell Line, Tumor, Dose-Response Relationship, Radiation, DNA Damage, Proton biological effect, Linear energy transfer (LET), Microdosimetric lineal energy spectrum, Lung cancer cells, Particle physics, Biological physics, Biophysics, Cancer

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Associated Data

PMID: 39448656