Bystander and other delayed effects and multi-organ involvement and failure following high dose exposure to ionising radiation

There is no doubt that ionising radiation damages DNA and that certain organs in the body are more vulnerable than others to the effects of radiation. However, the reasons for the different sensitivities vary and there are now known to be many late expressed effects of exposure that cannot simply be explained on the basis of direct DNA damage. Examples include transmissible genomic instability, bystander effects and adaptive responses, which …