| Abstract: | The influence of dose rate on the effectiveness of a neutron irradiation was investigated using growth inhibition in Vicia faba bean roots as biological system. d(50) + Be neutron beams produced at the cyclotron CYCLONE of the University of Louvain-la-Neuve were used, at high and low dose rate, by modifying the deuteron beam current. When decreasing the dose rate from 0.14 Gy.min-1 to 0.2 Gy.h-1, the effectiveness of the neutrons decreased down to 0.84 +/- 0.05 (dose ratio, at high and low dose rate. Dhigh/Dlow, producing equal biological effect). Control irradiations, with 60Co gamma-rays, indicated a similar reduction in effectiveness (0.84 +/- 0.03) when decreasing dose rate from 0.6 Gy.min-1 to 0.7 Gy.h-1. In previous experiments, on the same Vicia faba system, higher RBE values were observed for 252Cf neutrons, at low dose rate (RBE = 8.3), compared to different neutron beams actually used in external beam therapy (RBE = 3.2 - 3.6 for d(50) + Be, p(75) + Be and 15 MeV (d, T) neutrons). According to present results, this higher RBE has to be related to the lower energy of the 252Cf neutron spectrum (2 MeV), since the influence of dose rate was shown to be small. As far as OER is concerned, for d(50) + Be neutrons, it decreases from 1.65 +/- 0.12 to 1.59 +/- 0.09 when decreasing dose rate from 0.14 Gy.min-1 to 0.2 Gy.h-1. Control irradiations with 60Co gamma-rays have shown an OER decrease from 2.69 +/- 0.08 to 2.55 +/- 0.11 when decreasing dose rate from 0.6 Gy.min-1 to 0.7 Gy.h-1. These rather small OER reductions are within the statistical fluctuations. |
