Mathematical models of radiation action on living cells: From the target theory to the modern approaches. A historical and critical review

Cell survival is conventionally defined as the capability of irradiated cells to produce colonies. It is quantified by the clonogenic assays that consist in determining the number of colonies resulting from a known number of irradiated cells. Several mathematical models were proposed to describe the survival curves, notably from the target theory. The Linear-Quadratic (LQ) model, which is to date the most frequently used model in radiobiology...