Effects of gamma radiation on lung and colon cancer cell viability

Abstract

In Mongolia, cancer treatment is carried out through radiation, chemotherapy and surgery, and there is only one state hospital that specializes in this field, the National Cancer Center of Mongolia.

As our country's population has grown in recent years, data for 2023 from the Central Statistical Office show that the incidence of cancer, on the one hand, and the number of cases of the disease, on the other, are increasing as patients get younger. This study concerns an important part of the triad of cancer treatment, namely the evaluation of the efficacy of radiotherapy in an "in vitro" situation. Ionizing radiation has been shown to have a number of biological effects, including damage to DNA. This damage can manifest as double-strand breaks (DSB), base damage and single-strand breaks (SSB).

The ⁶⁰Co radiation source "Bhabhatron", which is installed at the National Cancer Center of Mongolia, is used as a gamma source for the cell viability experiment. In this experiment, we use two different cancer cell samples (A549, HCT116) and all used samples prepared in the Gene Engineering Laboratory of the National University of Mongolia in a quantity of 1 ml, and the cell samples were irradiated with doses of 2 Gy, 4 Gy, 6 Gy and 8 Gy. The cell viability of A549 and HCT116 cancer cells after gamma irradiation was determined using the WST assay and calculated using an analytical formula. The calculated and measured results are comparable for two different cancer cells.

Keywords: cancer cells, cell viability, WST assay, cancer treatment, radiation doses.