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How Important Is the FLASH Effect in a Nuclear Explosion?

Yvan Dutil¹, Ir Martin Benoît Gagnon²

¹Québec, Canada.

|March 9, 2026

Summary

FLASH radiation, delivered at very high dose rates, causes less cell damage than moderate rates. This protective effect may reduce radiation risk estimates for Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors by up to 13.1%.

Keywords:

dose health effects medical radiation radiotherapy

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Area of Science:

Radiation biology
Radiation epidemiology
Nuclear physics

Background:

High dose rate radiation (FLASH) demonstrates reduced biological damage compared to conventional dose rates.
Nuclear explosions deliver a significant radiation dose fraction at high dose rates.
Current radiation risk models, based on Hiroshima and Nagasaki data, may not fully account for FLASH effects.

Purpose of the Study:

To estimate the potential impact of FLASH radiation's protective effect on radiation risk assessments for atomic bomb survivors.
To quantify the reduction in genetic damage attributable to FLASH radiation.
To evaluate the sensitivity of these estimates to neutron relative biological effectiveness (RBE).

Main Methods:

Literature review of scientific studies on FLASH radiation effects within the relevant dose range.
Application of estimated protective effect factors to dosimetry data from the Life Span Study (LSS) cohort.
Analysis of dose-response relationships, excluding doses above 4 Gy.
Sensitivity analysis using varying neutron RBE values.

Main Results:

The maximum protective effect on genetic damage was estimated at approximately 40% (factor of 0.6).
For Hiroshima survivors, the estimated reduction in radiation risk magnitude ranged from 3.3% to 13.1%, dependent on dose and neutron RBE.
For Nagasaki survivors, the estimated risk reduction was consistently between 7.3% and 9.3%, with less sensitivity to neutron RBE.
Potential threshold effects around 1 Gy were observed in biodosimetric studies.

Conclusions:

FLASH radiation's protective effect could significantly alter radiation risk estimates for exposed populations.
Further research is crucial to investigate FLASH effects at epidemiological dose ranges (0.1–4 Gy) due to data heterogeneity.
Current risk models may underestimate risks for populations exposed to high dose rate radiation, necessitating updated assessments.