Physics of ion beam cancer therapy: a multi-scale approach

We propose a multi-scale approach to understand the physics related to ion-beam cancer therapy. It allows the calculation of the probability of DNA damage as a result of irradiation of tissues with energetic ions, up to 430 MeV/u. This approach covers different scales, starting from the large scale, defined by the ion stopping, followed by a smaller scale, defined by secondary electrons and radicals, and ending with the shortest scale, defined by interactions of secondaries with the DNA. We present calculations of the probabilities of single and double strand breaks of DNA, suggest a way to further expand such calculations, and also make some estimates for glial cells exposed to radiation.