Abstract
Recent research in radiobiology indicates that many different kinds of mammalian cell, both normal and malignant, show similar radio-sensitivity with respect to loss of reproductive integrity, if at the same oxygen tension. The shoulder at the beginning of the dose-response curve implies that fractionation must reduce the efficiency of irradiation, and with a relatively greater loss of effect on hypoxic cells—probably present in many tumours. Nevertheless, clinical experience with extended fractionation methods confirms their value. It is suggested that this is due to differences in the cell-population kinetics of normal and malignant tissue. Such differences can be even further exploited by split-course methods, making possible high tumour doses with reduced normal tissue damage.
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