Loss of Reproductive Ability in Cells

Abstract

Cell survival, in radiobiological terms, is understood as the ability for indefinite reproduction. After a description of basic techniques, the formalism of survival curves is discussed. The next section shows whether and how the different sensitivities of cell species may be interpreted; it will be shown that it is related — at least with ionizing radiation — to the amount of genetic material. A description of the influence of radiation quality is followed by a consideration of action spectroscopy with UV and the importance of the spatial pattern of energy deposition with ionizing radiation. The concept of “relative biological effectiveness” (RBE) is introduced and critically discussed. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the interaction of different radiation types in combination experiments.