Survival of tumor cells after proton irradiation with ultra-high dose rates.
BACKGROUND
Laser acceleration of protons and heavy ions may in the future be used in radiation therapy. Laser-driven particle beams are pulsed and ultra high dose rates of >10⁹ Gy s⁻¹ may be achieved. Here we compare the radiobiological effects of pulsed and continuous proton beams.


METHODS
The ion microbeam SNAKE at the Munich tandem accelerator was used to directly compare a pulsed and a continuous 20 MeV proton beam, which delivered a dose of 3 Gy to a HeLa cell monolayer within < 1 ns or 100 ms, respectively. Investigated endpoints were G2 phase cell cycle arrest, apoptosis, and colony formation.


RESULTS
At 10 h after pulsed irradiation, the fraction of G2 cells was significantly lower than after irradiation with the continuous beam, while all other endpoints including colony formation were not significantly different. We determined the relative biological effectiveness (RBE) for pulsed and continuous proton beams relative to x-irradiation as 0.91 ± 0.26 and 0.86 ± 0.33 (mean and SD), respectively.


CONCLUSIONS
At the dose rates investigated here, which are expected to correspond to those in radiation therapy using laser-driven particles, the RBE of the pulsed and the (conventional) continuous irradiation mode do not differ significantly.
Department of Radiation Oncology, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Germany.
Susanne
S
Auer
Volker
V
Hable
Christoph
C
Greubel
Guido A
GA
Drexler
Thomas E
TE
Schmid
Claus
C
Belka
Günther
G
Dollinger
Anna A
AA
Friedl
D017209:Apoptosis; D002453:Cell Cycle; D002470:Cell Survival; D005434:Flow Cytometry; D006367:HeLa Cells; D020450:Heavy Ions; D006801:Humans; D007477:Ions; D007834:Lasers; D008856:Microscopy, Fluorescence / Q000379:methods; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology / Q000532:radiotherapy*; D010315:Particle Accelerators; D011522:Protons; D011878:Radiotherapy / Q000379:methods; D012062:Relative Biological Effectiveness; D013997:Time Factors; D014965:X-Rays
D007477:Ions; D011522:Protons