Dose-response relationships with embryonal radiation damage using as an example the skeleton of a mouse after prenatal neutron irradiation

The dose-response relationships after acute neutron irradiation on the seventh or tenth day p.c. in the dose range between 0.05, resp. 0,125 Gy and 0.75, resp. 1 Gy, were studied. There then followed an anatomically undifferentiated listing of the skeletal aberrations with exclusive consideration of the in each case most serious damage per fetus. With increasing radiation doses a shifting of the skeletal aberrations into the next higher damage category was recognisable. There was also a phase-dependent resistence increase from the 7th to the 10th day p.c. A comparison of the dose-response curves shows pronounced shoulder curves after x-radiation compared to approximately straight-lined curves after neutron irradiation. The recovery capacity is thereafter largely suppressed by the densely ionising radiation. From each of the dose-response curves different damage niveaus of the RBW factors between 1.6 and 3.6 can be determined. (orig./MG)