Abstract
Radiation hormesis is a concept that pervades radiobiological exposures; low doses enhance immune response, while higher doses inhibit immune response. Low-dose Total-Body Irradiation (TBI) therapy offers radiation treatment to cancer patients using the concepts of radiation hormesis and show very good success rates. This phenomenon has been reported elsewhere as the “abscopal effect” and considering the marginal success rates of other treatment agents, like the immunotherapy drug Ipilimumab, TBI therapy may prove to be the missing link to a better cancer treatment.
Highlights
Radiation hormesis is the inverted “U” trend of health effects from exposure to radiation, i.e. No exposure and very high-dose exposures suppress the immune system as compared to low exposures, which stimulate immunity and better health (Figure 1)
The authors suggested that a second radiation exposure to the treated mice would probably have been sufficient to further prolong or prevent the recurrence of the cancer altogether! Not knowing about radiation hormesis the authors suggest that the immune system could have been “vitally concerned”, but they were “unwilling to commit ourselves... the results... are strongly suggestive of this.”
Low-dose Total-Body Irradiation (TBI) therapy for the treatment of human cancers is the application of lowdose radiation in repeated doses over a period of five weeks (Figure 2)
Summary
Radiation hormesis is the inverted “U” trend of health effects from exposure to radiation, i.e. No exposure and very high-dose exposures suppress the immune system as compared to low exposures (above zero), which stimulate immunity and better health (Figure 1). The LNT model assumes any exposure to radiation is harmful in a linear extrapolation, which ignores the plethora of data for the healthful effects of low-dose radiation. (2015) Is Use of Radiation Hormesis the Missing Link to a Better Cancer Treatment? Current use of radiation in cancer treatment is in the high-dose exposure rates to “kill” rapidly dividing cells. This approach is limited in its effectiveness; [5] [6] as for example, the reduction in age-adjusted cancer mortality rate has decreased only 10% in the 45 years from 1960-2005 [7]
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