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Showing papers on "Radiation-induced lung injury published in 1993"


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Improvements were made to the equipment and the procedures used in the rebreathing technique which resulted in linear relationships between uptake and weight in three mouse strains, CBA/J, C57BL/6J, and C57L/J.
Abstract: Carbon monoxide uptake is a sensitive measure of lung injury, but its application to mice using the rebreathing technique has produced a nonlinear dependence of carbon monoxide uptake on mouse weight, in contrast to the linear relationship obtained in larger rodents using the single-breath technique. Improvements were made to the equipment and the procedures used in the rebreathing technique which resulted in linear relationships between uptake and weight in three mouse strains, CBA/J, C57BL/6J, and C57L/J. Sequential measurements were made on mice during the early and intermediate phases after irradiation of the thorax which demonstrated the development of injury in individual mice with considerable sensitivity. Estimates of the proportion of lung which was considered to be nonfunctional based on its histological appearance were obtained using alveolar ducts as sampling markers in 64 C57L/J mice between 10 and 31 weeks after irradiation. The deficit in carbon monoxide uptake was determined on the day of sacrifice for each mouse, and the results showed good correspondence to the histological estimate of the extent of damage. The correspondence between breathing rate elevation and the histological

10 citations



Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Pulmonary 99mTc-DTPA clearance may be useful for predicting the development of radiation pneumonitis, and the mean k value obtained increased just before the onset, and further increased when the disease manifested clinically.
Abstract: We prospectively monitored pulmonary 99mTc-DTPA (diethylene triamine penta acetate) clearance in patients who received chest radiation therapy, in order to determine whether this method allows us to predict the development of radiation pneumonitis. The rate constant of pulmonary 99mTc-DTPA clearance (k; %/min) was used to assess pulmonary epithelial damage. Fifteen nonsmoking patients who underwent radiation therapy were studied. The subjects included 4 patients who had already developed radiation pneumonitis at the time of study, and 11 in whom we prospectively observed 99mTc-DTPA clearance serially during the course of chest radiation therapy. In the 4 patients with pre-existing radiation pneumonitis, the mean k value obtained from the area with infiltration on the chest X-ray was significantly greater than that from the opposite lung (p < 0.02). In the prospective study, 3 out of 11 patients developed radiation pneumonitis. The mean k of the irradiated lung field in the 8 patients who did not develop radiation pneumonitis was unchanged. The mean k value obtained in the 3 patients who did develop radiation pneumonitis increased just before the onset, and further increased when the disease manifested clinically. We conclude that pulmonary 99mTc-DTPA clearance may be useful for predicting the development of radiation pneumonitis.

3 citations