Abstract

The response of tumours onto ionizing radiation cannot be fully understood by commonly used radiobiological models. The reason may lie in the complex structure of the cellular systems which show a high degree of compartmentalisation and which is characterised by a network of interacting processes at different time scales. To access the dynamic response of cells onto radiation, compartmental models based on a biological dose equiva-lent can be used. Two different models (Γ-LQ- and Γ-IRmodel) are used to fit experimental data of the clonogenic survival of irradiated cells at very high dose rates. The models reveal the correct dose rate dependence over a wide range of the parameter space when adapting the kinetic constants to the dose rate. This adaption could be an indication for the multi-scale structure of the system.