Induction by radiation of leukaemias and other malignant diseases of haematopoietic cells in experimental animals.

This paper presents a consideration of some general problems of interpretation connected with leukaemia and allied diseases in irradiated mice. An important point to be noted when attempting to extrapolate from animal experiments to man is that, whereas the levels of leukaemia incidence open to experimental investigation lie between 5% and 100%, the mechanisms important to man are those concerned with levels of incidence of 1: 1000 or 1: 10 000. Moreover, since the human and murine diseases are not identical, the relevance of experimental work to the human problem depends on the definition of leukaemia.Experimental work suggests that the incidence of radiation-induced leukaemia depends as much on the particular conditions of irradiation as on the total radiation dose received.