Study on acute injury reaction to experimental pig skin induced by 12C6+ ion beams

The tolerance of the normal skin to the acute radiation injury reaction induced by heavy ion beams has been studied experimentally. The experimental pigs were injected with 1.2 mg/kg ketamine in 10 min before irradiation and were irradiated with 0, 12, 21 and 27 Gy 12C6+ ion at a dose rate of 1.2 Gy/min at the Heavy Ion research Facility in Lanzhou(HIRFL). The total radiation dose was finished by 3 times at Bragg Peak Region of Heavy Ion Beams. The results radiation fields of skin were taken photo and performed biopsy. The contaneous tissues of radiation fields were stained by HE and examined histopathological changes every seven days after irradiation. The results indicated that the cutaneous appearance reaction became more faster with radiation dosage rising and presented with swollen, melanin forming and so on after irradiated by the carbon ions at different dosage. The Pathological examination showed noticeable changes in histological and structural of experimental pigs skin, such as atrophy, vacuolation, denaturation and arranged irregularly in epithelial cells. Furthermore, the time for return to normality became longer with the increasing of radiation dosage. All indexes demonstrated correlation between the does and effects. It is concluded that the irradiation of heavy ion beams to normal skin if security when the radiation dose range in about 0-27 Gy. (authors)