The repair-misrepair model in radiobiology: comparison to other models

Biological phenomena related to the inactivation of eukaryotic cells by noxious agents have been formulated mathematically in the repair-misrepair (RMR) model by separately quantitating the initial submicroscopic production of molecular lesions and the later, macroscopic expression of effects in the course of cell progression and repair. This paper presents some conceptual and quantitative similarities and differences between the RMR and seven other models proposed for cellular radiobiology including: the linear-quadratic, three-lambda, cubic-survival, target theory, hit-size probability, cybernetic, and lethal-potentially lethal models. The comparison of the various approaches has shown that the RMR model can be generalized to show relationships with each.