Application of Low Doses of Ionizing Radiation in Medical Therapies

Abstract

The discovery of X-rays and radioactivity in 1895/1896 triggered a flood of studies and applications of radiation in medicine that continues to this day. They started with imaging fractures/organs and progressed to treating diseases by exposing areas to radiation from external and internal sources. By definition, low-dose treatments stimulate damage control (or adaptive protection) systems that remedy diseases. Publications are identified on low-dose ionizing radiation (LDIR) therapies for different cancers, infections, inflammations, and autoimmune and neurodegenerative diseases. The high rate of endogenous DNA damage, due to leakage of oxygen from aerobic metabolism, and the damage control systems that deal with this are discussed. Their stimulation and inhibition by radiation are described. The radium dial painter studies revealed the radium ingestion threshold for malignancy and the dose threshold for bone sarcoma. The radiation scare that misled the medical profession and the public is a barrier to LDIR therapies. Many studies on nasal radium irradiation demonstrated that children are not unduly radiation sensitive. Omissions in the medical textbooks misinform physicians about the effects of LDIR therapy, which blocks clinical trials to determine optimal doses, efficacy, and thresholds for onset of harm. Information from many recent case reports on LDIR therapies, including successes with radon therapy, is provided.

Keywords: autoimmune disease; cancer remediation; inflammation; low-dose ionizing radiation; radiation hormesis; radon therapy.

Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Conflicting Interests: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

© The Author(s) 2020.

Figures

Figure 1.

Leakage of reactive oxygen species (ROS) from oxygen metabolism and ionizing radiation (IR) effect on DNA and biomolecules.

Figure 2.

Biphasic dose–response model. Definition of a low dose and a high dose of radiation.

Figure 3.

Stepwise decrease in annual occupational dose limit from 70 rem (1924) to 5 rem (1958).

Figure 4.

Standard radium solution for drinking, 2 μg or 2 μCi.

Figure 5.

Study of 1468 female radium dial painters indicated a 100 μCi systemic intake threshold for malignancies. There were 56 malignancies among the 1468 dial painters in this study.

Figure 6.

Cumulative incidence of bone sarcoma versus cumulative rad (CR) from radium ingested by dial painters indicates a 10 Gy threshold. Note the plateau at about 30%, from 10 to 500 Gy.

Figure 7.

Severe hand injury with some gas in tissue (left) and same hand a few days after prophylactic X-ray irradiation (right).

Figure 8.

Reduction in gas gangrene mortality from 50% to 5% by using X-ray therapy.

Figure 9.

Child receiving nasal radium irradiation treatment.

Figure 10.

Position of the 2 radium probes.

Figure 11.

Low dose of ionizing radiation depresses lung metastases in mice when total body radiation is given 12 days after tumor cell transplantation into groin. Lung colonies were counted 20 days after TBI occurred.

Figure 12.

Survival of patients with non-Hodgkin lymphoma treated by the combined treatment of low-dose total body radiation (TBI) and high-dose local irradiation (solid line) versus patients treated by high-dose local irradiation alone (dotted line).

Figure 13.

Survival of patients with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, stage I and II, treated by the combined therapy of low-dose total body radiation (TBI) and high-dose local irradiation (solid line) versus patients treated by the combined therapy of high-dose local irradiation followed by chemotherapy (dashed line).

Figure 14.

Prostate-specific antigen (PSA) change shows the improvement in the condition of patient with prostate cancer after 30 X-ray treatments of 0.15 Gy each.

Figure 15.

Prostate-specific antigen (PSA) change shows the improvement in the condition of patient with prostate cancer after 10 X-ray treatments of 0.1 Gy and radon bedsheet therapy each night, for 10 months.

Figure 16.

Cancer markers show improvement in condition of patient with breast cancer after inhaling radon, 0.5 to 1.0 MBq/m3, for 40 minutes, twice, 3 days per week.

Figure 17.

Cancer markers show improvement in condition of patient with breast cancer after 40 minutes of hormesis room therapy, twice daily (radon = 9800 Bq/m3; γ-radiation level = 11 μSv/h).

Figure 18.

Changes in values of 2 markers show the improvement in the condition of a patient with advanced rheumatoid arthritis after receiving hormesis room and radon nebulizer therapies.

Figure 19.

Cancer markers show improvement in condition of patient with liver cell cancer after the radon concentration was increased 6-fold to 6 MBq/m3 on August 6, 2018.

Figure 20.

Pemphigus autoimmune disease subsided after patient received hormesis room and radon generator therapies.

Figure 21.

Author beside patient with Parkinson disease and patient with Alzheimer dementia. Computed tomography scans of brain-stimulated protection against oxidative stress, restoring a degree of cognition, memory, speech, movement, and appetite.-

Figure 22.

DNA damage control biosystem, showing the effects of the 3 types of natural adaptive protection systems against reactive oxygen species (ROS)-induced damage in human cells.

Figure 23.

Evidence of a threshold at 1.1 Gy for radiation-induced leukemia from an analysis of the data of 95 819 Hiroshima atomic bomb survivors.,