Radiation tolerance of the rat spinal cord after 6 and 18 fractions of photons and carbon ions: Experimental results and clinical implications

Conclusions: Carbon ion irradiations of the spinal cord are significantly more effective in the peak than in the plateau region. The α/β-values indicate a significant fractionation effect only for the plateau irradiations. In the Bragg-peak, the applied RBE-model correctly describes the main features although it generally underestimates the RBE by 25%. In the plateau region, maximum deviations of up to 20% were found. The acquired data contribute significantly to the validation of the applied RBE-model.