Radiobiology and Radiation Safety
Question :
You are required to write a brief LITERATURE REVIEW on various topics of your interest pertaining radiobiology and radiation safety. Your literatures should be the recent five years. The topic may cover any of the following areas including:
1. Biological effects of radiation (any types of radiation)
2. Radiation protection or radiation safety towards patient, staff and public
3. Others which are relevant to radiobiology and radiation safety
Answer :
Introduction
Radiobiology is one of the significant fields of clinical as well as basic medical sciences that focuses on the study and analyzing the action of ionizing radiation on living things. It particularly focuses on the health effects of radiation. The concept of radiobiology is very significant in the field of nursing and medical science. Understanding the principles of radiobiology as well as its application to nursing is integral to obtain optimal results or outcomes. Radiotherapy is one of the widely used therapy to treat cancer (McNamara et al., 2017). It helps in delivering adequate doses of ionizing radiation to a particular part or area of the body in order to damage the targeted DNA that is the main cause of the death of the cells. Ionizing radiation may lead to the death of cells either directly or indirectly. There is a significant health impact of radiation on the human body or in general living things. Thus, there is a need to ensure radiation safety to protect the health of people and other living things. This paper focuses on analyzing the concept of radiobiology and radiation safety.
The basic principles of radiobiology
There are four basic principles of radiobiology that should be studied and analyzed to gain in-depth knowledge about the concept of radiobiology. The following are the basic principles of radiobiology.
Reoxygenation
When radiation is delivered in various fractions to cells that could be comparatively resistant because of hypoxia then reoxygenation is said to have occurred. In this process, the cell can become oxygenated which may lead to more radiosensitive (Frank, 2020).
Redistribution
Redistribution can be defined by the cell that survives as well as sustain a dose of radiation because of synchronization in the resistant phase of the redistribution as well as division cycle into a more sensitive phase of the cell cycle during subsequent doses of radiation.
Repopulation
It is also one of the significant principles of radiobiology that describes the responses of cells to deadly injuries by regenerating or repopulating themselves (Khan et al., 2016).
Repair
Repair is also one of the principles of radiobiology that occurs following sub deadly cellular injury. It represents damage to the DNA strands that could be repaired by the process of the enzyme.
The basic principles of radiobiology are also called the four R’s of radiobiology that helps in determining the prescription for a site particular tumor with a specific pathology as well as histology. The unit of Gray (Gy) is used in order to determine or quantity the dose of radiation (absorbed radiation) within a recipient. The absorbed dose of radiation is an indicator of the level of intensity of the biological effect that could occur in different tissues of the body because of the ionizing radiation. The total dose of radiation that is prescribed to treat a specific tumor is categorized or divided into several daily fractions or doses on the basis of the basic principles of radiobiology (Bazan et al., 2018). The main focus of it to protect the normal surrounding tissues along with maximizing the impact of radiation on the tumor. It is also important to know that different tissues have different tolerance levels to radiation exposure, and if it exceeds, it will result in high morbidity of the treatment.
Radiation could be very dangerous for health as it significantly affects the health of people. Therefore, there is a need to take some precautionary measures in order to ensure radiation safety while working with radiation. The following steps could be taken to protect oneself from radiation while working with radiation.
It is necessary for every individual to take overexposure of radiation seriously considering its health impact. People should be aware of the impact of radiation on health so that they can protect themselves from being exposed to radiation. Being aware of the impact of radiation is also necessary because it helps people to consider it seriously and take precautionary measures to protect themselves. Before working with radiation, they must acquire adequate training in order to understand the nature of radiation hazards effectively (Shainer et al., 2016). Training will also help them to use equipment and tools effectively and efficiently in order to protect them from radiation.
Apart from this, the handling time of radioactive equipment as well as materials should be reduced. It is better to work or handle radioactive equipment and materials for a lesser time in order to avoid overexposure to radiation. An individual should always be mindful of the distance from the source of radiation because too close to the source of radiation could be a very serious issue for the health of the individual. Therefore, the individual needs to maintain a certain distance from the source of radiation in order to avoid the effect of radiation on health. The individual should focus on increasing the distance as much as possible for the sake of health.
Moreover, proper shied should be used while working with radiation depending on the type of radiation. It is essential to understand that depending on the type of radiation, the selection of a shield is necessary in order to avoid the effect of radiation and ensure radiation safety. The individual should also focus on harmful radioactive materials. The harmful radioactive material should be isolated or contained properly so that an individual cannot get exposed to harmful materials and radiation (Dong et al., 2018). The individual also needs to Armor him or herself with appropriate protective clothing as well as dosimeters. Within the working area, a contamination survey should be conducted in order to identify the potential risk or hazard associated with the working place so that effective steps could be taken to avoid or mitigate the risk of radiation and protect every individual working within the organization from radiation.
Individuals working with radiation should also avoid eating, smoking, drinking, as well as applying cosmetics. Involving in such activities in an area where unsealed radioactive materials are being handled is very dangerous for health. Thus, these activities should be completely avoided. The extensive focus should be given on the disposal of radioactive waste in order to avoid health risks associated with it (Etzel et al., 2017). It is also important to conduct radiation safety self-inspection on a regular basis so that risk associated with it can be identified and proper action could be taken to deal with the risk.
Conclusion
Radiation has very serious health issues to every living thing and exposure to radiation may lead to acute health effects such as acute radiation syndrome as well as skin burn. Exposure to radiation has short as well as long-term health effects. One of the long-term health effects of radiation is cancer. Cardiovascular diseases are also among the effects of radiation. Considering the impact of radiation on health, it is necessary to take appropriate actions as well as precautionary measures to avoid the effect of radiation and ensure radiation safety. One of the key steps that are necessary to take is providing an adequate training program to those who are working with radiation. They should be made aware of the impact of radiation on their health and what they can do to avoid such effects.
References
Bazan, J. G., Le, Q. T., & Zips, D. (2018). Radiobiology of Lung Cancer. In IASLC Thoracic Oncology (pp. 330-336). Content Repository Only!.
Dong, M., Xue, X., Kumar, A., Yang, H., Sayyed, M. I., Liu, S., & Bu, E. (2018). A novel method of utilization of hot-dip galvanizing slag using the heat waste from itself for protection from radiation. Journal of hazardous materials, 344, 602-614.
Etzel, R., König, A. M., Keil, B., Mahnken, A. H., & Fiebich, M. (2017). Session 16. Dosimetry, radiation protection and radiation biology II. Biomedical Engineering/Biomedizinische Technik, 62(s1), s57-s59.
Frank, L. W. S. J. (2020). Principles of Radiobiology. Proton Therapy E-Book: Indications, Techniques, and Outcomes.
Khan, A. J., Stewart, A., & Dale, R. (2016). The radiobiology of breast radiotherapy. In Short Course Breast Radiotherapy (pp. 39-52). Springer, Cham.
McNamara, A., Geng, C., Turner, R., Mendez, J. R., Perl, J., Held, K., ... & Schuemann, J. (2017). Validation of the radiobiology toolkit TOPAS-nBio in simple DNA geometries. Physica Medica, 33, 207-215.
Shainer, R., Almogi-Hazan, O., Berger, A., Hinden, L., Mueller, M., Brodie, C., ... & Or, R. (2016). Preimplantation factor (PIF) therapy provides comprehensive protection against radiation-induced pathologies. Oncotarget, 7(37), 58975.
