Mental working capacity following irradiation of different parts of the body

In elaborating radiation protection measures for astronauts flying through regions with elevated radiation levels it is important to know the characteristics of biological radiation effects. The problem was investigated on 139 patients treated with fractionated doses of 0.7 to 2.1 Gy for tumors of the head (36 patients), for tumors of the breast (68 patients), and for tumors of the abdomen (35 patients). In several tests, especially in the dose range up to 1.4 Gy, no alterations could be found, whereas at higher doses the mental working capacity decreased to 35 to 40 per cent with significant differences between patients who received radiation for head tumors and patients treated for abdomen tumors. Minimum deviations from normal values were observed with patients irradiated for breast tumors. The results of the examinations have been tabulated for 3 dose ranges: up to 0.7, 0.71 to 1.4 and 1.41 to 2.1 Gy. For the same dose ranges a frequency table of radiation-induced clinical symptoms is given