A REVIEW OF HUMAN CELL RADIOSENSITIVITY IN-VITRO

The survival curves of 694 human cell lines irradiated in exponentiall y growing phase in vitro were collected from the literature, Among the m, 271 were derived from tumors, 423 were nontransformed fibroblasts a nd other normal cell strains from healthy people or people with some g enetic disorders, Seventy-six different cell types are identified, and a specific radiosensitivity could be associated with each, using (D) over bar and surviving fraction at 2 Gy, Technical factors such as cul ture medium, feeder cells, and scoring method were found to affect int rinsic radiosensitivity, In particular, the cell type is not a discrim inating factor when cells are studied in agar, Results obtained with c ells irradiated in agar must be used cautiously, depending on how the cells were prepared for the experiments, The use of feeder cells narro ws the range of radiosensitivity of human cells, For cells irradiated as monolayer, it was possible to build a scale of radiosensitivity acc ording to cell type, ranging, in terms of (D) over bar from 0.6 Gy for the most sensitive cell Lines to more than 4 Gy for the most resistan t, Considering that, in most cases, we could estimate the variation of radiosensitivity within each cell type, our classification among cell types can be used by researchers to place their results in the contex t of the literature.