Relative Biological Effectiveness (RBE) values are used to characterise
the biological efficiency of different radiation qualities relative to
photon irradiations. The RBE–high linear energy transfer (LET) relation
for ion irradiations presents general features that the authors propose
to look at using a nanometric description of the energy deposition of
these ion irradiations (protons and alphas of different energies). In
this work, the simulation of the energy transfer points in the tracks
was made by Monte Carlo method using the Geant4-DNA processes and a
nanometric description of the target of interest for studying biological
effects, the DNA molecule. Results were obtained concerning the
sensitive volume to be considered for direct DNA clustered damages that
could be related to late biological effects.