Prediction of the Dose and Dose-Rate of Ionizing Radiation that Provides the Greatest Biological Benefit.

Abstract

Because the existence of linear no-threshold (LNT) hypothesis in the low-dose region has not been confirmed, we previously proposed the "hormesis-coupled LNT theory." Because this theory does not consider the effect of dose-rate, we applied our theory to different dose-rates using data from the previous reference (Yoshida et al. 2008). As a result, we calculated that the biological benefit via radiation can be observed at a dose-rate of <1 mGy/h. In the future, biologically beneficial factors may be identified by exploring the exposure region with cumulative doses of >350 mGy at this low-dose-rates.