Strengthening Patients’ Radioresistance by Radiation Training

Abstract

The effects of ionizing radiation are highly relevant in radiation oncology. Radiation toxicity is an important factor limiting the therapeutic dose. To address the problem, a mathematical model of biological response to time-dependent irradiation of arbitrary time-shape, based on the damped-oscillator analogy in physics, has been developed and reported previously. The human body presents what is called in physics a complex system, which means that even the perfect knowledge of interactions between its elementary units may be insufficient to explain the reaction of the total system. Therefore, an attempt of describing/modeling within the holistic approach may reveal some truth which is not directly seen when starting from the biophysics of cells. This paper does not present novel results but is aimed at a practitioner-oriented non-math description of the proposed model, its mathematical results and their practical implications. Namely, based on the developed model, we have suggested a practical way to improve radiation therapy protocols with gradually increasing total-body irradiation doses; after undergoing this kind of radiation treatment a person should be able to withstand higher, maybe fivefold, therapeutic doses. Our very preliminary estimate places the training time as about six weeks and the training dose of up to about 600 cGy. If the model is correct, it should be feasible to increase considerably the efficacy of radiation therapy by increasing acceptable therapeutic doses through such training.

Note:
Funding Information: This work received no specific funding.

Conflict of Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Keywords: cancer; radiation therapy; fractionation; hormesis; adaptive protection

JEL Classification: I19