The Bystander Effect: A Need to Change the Radiation Risk Estimation

Recent studies have provided evidence of bystander effect. The bystander phenomenon has been tentatively linked to an elevated risk of health effect at low dose in human (cancer, congenital abnormalities, neurological disease and hereditary effects) but none of those health effects has so far been scientifically shown to be associated with such radiation-induced effects. The possibility cannot be excluded but remains purely speculative. Further investigations are needed to clarify the nature and the importance of the bystander effect for the risk estimation in the low dose range.