Mutations – Are all types of cells (skin, brain, reproductive) equally affected by exposure to ionizing radiation?

Question

The deeper the organ, the less it’s affected?

In: Biology

Answer 1

No, they’re not. Different types of body tissue have different levels of sensitivity to radiation. For example, reproductive organs or bone marrow are much more sensitive than skin or liver, for example. When we calculate the risk associated with some dose of radiation, we use what are called sensitivities to take into account the different sensitives. Tissue weighing factors are essentially multipliers that allow us to say “x dose of radiation is 5x more damaging to this type of tissue than this other type of tissue.”