Determination of the proportion of persons in the population-at-large who exhibit abnormal sensitivity to ionizing radiation

The authors report here the determination, using double-blind conditions and uniform procedures, of the distribution of radio-response in 270 different cell strains from ostensibly normal persons. This represents the largest survey, by nearly an order of magnitude, that has been carried out on the radioresponse in vitro of cultured strains from ostensibly normal donors. Both acute and chronic γ-ray exposure protocols were employed in screening, the latter because of previous demonstrations, in studies utilizing cultured fibroblast strains, of the utility of protracted exposure in elucidating small degrees of increased radiosensitivity (Paterson et al., 1985; Myers and Gentner, 1987). Preliminary data from a similar study on a cancer patient population are also given. Results suggest that an appreciable proportion of normal donors exhibit abnormal radiosensitivity when tested in vitro, and that this characteristic appears to be indicative of a higher-than-normal probability of developing cancer. (author)