Feinberg School of Medicine, Radiation Oncology, Northwestern University, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2021 Mar 3;16(3):e0231511. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0231511. eCollection 2021.
The Department of Energy conduced ten large-scale neutron irradiation experiments at Argonne National Laboratory between 1972 and 1989. Using a new approach to utilize experimental controls to determine whether a cross comparison between experiments was appropriate, we amalgamated data on neutron exposures to discover that fractionation significantly improved overall survival. A more detailed investigation showed that fractionation only had a significant impact on the death hazard for animals that died from solid tumors, but did not significantly impact any other causes of death. Additionally, we compared the effects of sex, age first irradiated, and radiation fractionation on neutron irradiated mice versus cobalt 60 gamma irradiated mice and found that solid tumors were the most common cause of death in neutron irradiated mice, while lymphomas were the dominant cause of death in gamma irradiated mice. Most animals in this study were irradiated before 150 days of age but a subset of mice was first exposed to gamma or neutron irradiation over 500 days of age. Advanced age played a significant role in decreasing the death hazard for neutron irradiated mice, but not for gamma irradiated mice. Mice that were 500 days old before their first exposures to neutrons began dying later than both sham irradiated or gamma irradiated mice.
能源部于 1972 年至 1989 年在阿贡国家实验室进行了十次大规模的中子辐照实验。我们采用了一种新方法,利用实验控制来确定实验之间的交叉比较是否合适,将中子辐照数据合并后发现,分割显著提高了总体生存率。更详细的研究表明,分割仅对死于实体瘤的动物的死亡风险有显著影响,但对其他任何死因没有显著影响。此外,我们比较了性别、首次辐照时的年龄和辐射分割对中子辐照和钴 60 伽马辐照小鼠的影响,发现实体瘤是中子辐照小鼠中最常见的死亡原因,而淋巴瘤是伽马辐照小鼠中死亡的主要原因。本研究中的大多数动物在 150 天之前接受辐照,但一小部分动物在 500 天以上接受伽马或中子辐照。高龄在降低中子辐照小鼠的死亡风险方面发挥了重要作用,但对伽马辐照小鼠没有影响。首次接受中子辐照前已达 500 天的小鼠比假辐照或伽马辐照小鼠死亡时间更晚。