Targeting of Inflammation for Radiation Protection and Mitigation

Title:Targeting of Inflammation for Radiation Protection and Mitigation

Volume: 11

Author(s): Rasoul Yahyapour, Peyman Amini, Saeed Rezapoor, Abolhasan Rezaeyan, Bagher Farhood, Mohsen Cheki, Hengameh Fallah and Masoud Najafi*

Affiliation:

• Radiology and Nuclear Medicine Department, School of Paramedical Sciences, Kermanshah University of Medical Science, Kermanshah,Iran

Keywords: Inflammation, Radiation, Radioprotection, COX-2, NF-κB, gastrointestinal toxicity, mucositis, angiogenesis.

Abstract: Background: Inflammation is the response of the immune system that guards the body against several harmful stimuli in normal conditions. However, in response to ionizing radiation that leads to a massive cell death and DNA aberrations, this phenomenon causes various side effects in normal tissues. Inflammation is involved in various side effects such as gastrointestinal toxicity, mucositis, skin reactions, nervous system damage, pneumonitis, fibrosis and so on.

Discussion: Observations have proposed that inflammatory mediators are involved in the toxic effect of ionizing radiation on non-irradiated cells via a phenomenon named bystander effect. Inflammation in both irradiated and non-irradiated cells can trigger genomic instability, leading to increased risk of carcinogenesis. Targeting the inflammatory mediators has been an interesting idea for improving the therapeutic ratio throughout the reduction of normal tissue injury as well as an increase in tumor response to radiotherapy.

Conclusion: So far, various targets have been proposed for the amelioration of radiation toxicity in radiotherapy. Of different targets, NF-κB, COX-2, some of NADPH Oxidase subfamilies, TGF-β, p38 and the renin-angiotensin system have shown promising results. Interestingly, inhibition of these targets can help sensitize the tumor cells to the radiation treatment with some mechanisms such as suppression of angiogenesis and tumor growth as well as induction of apoptosis. In this review, we focus on recent advances on promising studies for targeting the inflammatory mediators in radiotherapy.

Cite this article as:

Yahyapour Rasoul, Amini Peyman, Rezapoor Saeed, Rezaeyan Abolhasan, Farhood Bagher, Cheki Mohsen, Fallah Hengameh and Najafi Masoud*, Targeting of Inflammation for Radiation Protection and Mitigation, Current Molecular Pharmacology 2018; 11 (3) . https://dx.doi.org/10.2174/1874467210666171108165641