Giustina Simone

TL;DR: It is clear that future studies to determine the effectiveness of radiations of differing LET must use techniques that determine both yields and distributions of dsb, and assays need to be developed to allow these measurements at biologically relevant doses.

TL;DR: The proton RBE-LET relationship for cell inactivation is shifted to lower LET values compared with that for heavier ions, and the RBE for mutation induction increased continuously with LET.

TL;DR: The data seem to indicate that the RBE-LET curve depends on the type of radiation and this could imply that LET is not a good reference for the dose-effectiveness relationship.

TL;DR: Re-evaluation of the physical parameters for all the proton beams used in previous radiobiological investigations leads to significant changes in the dose-response curves and in the RBE-LET relationships, pointing out that there is a LET range where protons are more effective than alpha-particles.

TL;DR: RBE for inactivation with high-LET protons increased with the cellular radioresistance to gamma-rays, and a similar trend has been found in studies reported in the literature with He, C, N ions with LET in the range 20-125 keV/microm on human tumour cell lines.