Radiation fibrosis

BACKGROUND: Wilson's disease (WD) often leads to liver fibrosis and cirrhosis, and early diagnosis of WD cirrhosis is essential. Currently, there are few non-invasive prediction models for WD cirrhosis. The purpose of this study is to non-invasively predict the occurrence risk of compensated WD cirrhosis based on ultrasound imaging features and clinical characteristics. METHODS: A retrospective analysis of the clinical characteristics and ultrasound examination data of 102 WD patients from November 2018 to November 2020 was conducted...

PURPOSE: Proton Minibeam Radiotherapy (pMBRT) is an innovative radiation therapy approach that highly modulates the spatial dimension of the dose delivery using narrow, parallel, and submillimetric proton beamlets. pMBRT has proven its remarkable healthy tissue preservation in the brain and skin. This study assesses the potential advantages of pMBRT for thoracic irradiations compared to conventional radiotherapy in terms of normal tissue toxicity. The challenge here was the influence of respiratory motion on the typical peak and valley dose patterns of pMBRT and its potential biological impact...

Radiation-induced lung injury (RILI) is a dose-limiting toxicity for cancer patients receiving thoracic radiotherapy. As such, it is important to characterize metabolic associations with the early and late stages of RILI, namely pneumonitis and pulmonary fibrosis. Recently, Raman spectroscopy has shown utility for the differentiation of pneumonitic and fibrotic tissue states in a mouse model; however, the specific metabolite-disease associations remain relatively unexplored from a Raman perspective. This work harnesses Raman spectroscopy and supervised machine learning to investigate metabolic associations with radiation pneumonitis and pulmonary fibrosis in a mouse model...

Retroperitoneal fibrosis (RPF) is a rare condition characterized by the presence of fibro-inflammatory tissue surrounding the abdominal aorta and iliac arteries, often leading to the involvement of adjacent organs such as the ureters and inferior vena cava. We present a case report of a 56-year-old Caucasian woman with a complex medical history, including Hodgkin's lymphoma treated with chemotherapy and radiotherapy (31 years before), a significant smoking history, and a current presentation of acute kidney injury with oliguria, edema, and hypertension...

PURPOSE: Only a subset of patients with severe emphysema qualify for lung volume reduction surgery or endobronchial valves. We previously demonstrated that Stereotactic Ablative Radiotherapy (SABR) of lung tumors reduces lung volume in treated lobes by creating localized lung fibrosis. We aimed to determine the safety and, secondarily, explore the efficacy of Stereotactic Irradiation for Lung Volume Reduction (SILVR) over 18 months following intervention in patients with severe emphysema...

Locoregional radiotherapy play an important role in controlling the disease after surgery in patients with breast cancer. Radiotherapy schedules vary from conventional fraction to hypofractionation. The purpose of this review is to get an insight into the data on regional nodal irradiation (RNI) with hypofractionation in patients with breast cancer. This systematic review was constructed in accordance with Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-analysis (PRISMA) framework. Electronic databases such as PubMed, Cochrane and EMBASE were searched from January 1, 2023 to March 31, 2023 to identify studies published in English language on hypofractionated RNI in post mastectomy patients...

Topical patch delivery of deferoxamine (DFO) has been studied as a treatment for this fibrotic transformation in irradiated tissue. Efficacy of a novel cream formulation of DFO was studied as a RIF therapeutic in unwounded and excisionally wounded irradiated skin. C57BL/6J mice underwent 30 Gy of radiation to the dorsum followed by 4 weeks of recovery. In a first experiment, mice were separated into six conditions: DFO 50 mg cream (D50), DFO 100 mg cream (D100), soluble DFO injections (DI), DFO 1 mg patch (DP), control cream (Vehicle), and irradiated untreated skin (IR)...

In a recent stereotactic body radiation therapy animal model, radiation pneumonitis and radiation pulmonary fibrosis were observed at around 2 and 6 weeks, respectively. However, the molecular signature of this model remains unclear. This study aimed to examine the molecular characteristics at these two stages using RNA-seq analysis. Transcriptomic profiling revealed distinct transcriptional patterns for each stage. Inflammatory response and immune cell activation were involved in both stages. Cell cycle processes and response to type II interferons were observed during the inflammation stage...

The Ataxia-Telangiectasia Mutated (ATM) gene is implicated in DNA double-strand break repair. Controversies in clinical radiosensitivity remain known for monoallelic carriers of the ATM pathogenic variant (PV). An evaluation of the single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) rs1801516 (G-A) showed different results regarding late subcutaneous fibrosis after breast radiation therapy (RT). The main objective of this study was to evaluate acute and late toxicities in carriers of a rare ATM PV or predicted PV and in carriers of minor allele A of rs1801516 facing breast RT...

Non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with comorbid interstitial pneumonia (IP) is a population with limited treatment options and a poor prognosis. Patients with comorbid IP are at high risk of developing fatal drug-induced pneumonitis, and data on the safety and efficacy of molecularly targeted therapies are lacking. KRAS mutations have been frequently detected in patients with NSCLC with comorbid IP. However, the low detection rate of common driver gene mutations, such as epidermal growth factor receptor and anaplastic lymphoma kinase, in patients with comorbid IP frequently results in inadequate screening for driver mutations, and KRAS mutations may be overlooked...

The ovary is one of the first organs to show overt signs of aging in the human body, and ovarian aging is associated with a loss of gamete quality and quantity. The age-dependent decline in ovarian function contributes to infertility and an altered endocrine milieu, which has ramifications for overall health. The aging ovarian microenvironment becomes fibro-inflammatory and stiff with age, and this has implications for ovarian physiology and pathology, including follicle growth, gamete quality, ovulation dynamics, and ovarian cancer...

BACKGROUND: The applicability of ultra-hypofractionated (ultra-HF) whole-breast irradiation (WBI) remains unknown in Japanese women. This study aimed to evaluate the safety and efficacy of this approach among Japanese women and report the results of an interim analysis performed to assess acute adverse events (AEs) and determine whether it was safe to continue this study. METHODS: We enrolled Japanese women with invasive breast cancer or ductal carcinoma in situ who had undergone breast-conserving surgery, were aged ≥ 40 years, had pathological stages of Tis-T3 N0-N1, and had negative surgical margins...

Head and neck cancer radiotherapy often damages salivary glands and oral mucosa, severely negatively impacting patients' quality of life. The ability of FLASH- Proton Radiation therapy (F-PRT) to decrease normal tissue toxicity while maintaining tumor control compared to Standard Proton Radiation therapy (S-PRT) has been previously demonstrated for several tissues. However, its potential in ameliorating radiation-induced salivary gland dysfunction and oral mucositis and controlling orthotopic head and neck tumor growth has not been reported...

The present work investigates the potential role of metformin nanoparticles (MTF-NPs) as a radio-protector against cardiac fibrosis and inflammation induced by gamma radiation via CXCL1/TGF-β pathway. Lethal dose fifty of nano-metformin was determined in mice, then 21 rats (male albino) were equally divided into three groups: normal control (G1), irradiated control (G2), and MTF-NPs + IRR (G3). The possible protective effect of MTF-NPs is illustrated via decreasing cardiac contents of troponin, C-X-C motif Ligand 1 (CXCL1), tumor growth factor β (TGF-β), protein kinase B (AKT), and nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB)...

Background The Society of Radiologists in Ultrasound (SRU) has proposed thresholds for acoustic radiation force impulse techniques to diagnose compensated advanced chronic liver disease (cACLD). However, the diagnostic performance of these thresholds has not been extensively validated. Purpose To validate the SRU thresholds in patients with chronic liver disease who underwent supersonic shear imaging and, if suboptimal diagnostic performance is observed, to identify optimal values for diagnosing cACLD. Materials and Methods This retrospective single-center study included high-risk patients with chronic liver disease who had liver stiffness (LS) measurements and had undergone endoscopy or liver biopsy between January 2018 and December 2021...

OBJECTIVES: To compare survival outcomes and toxic effects among patients with newly diagnosed nonmetastatic nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) when treated with intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) versus IMRT + carbon-ion radiotherapy (CIRT). METHODS: We performed a retrospective propensity score matching analysis (1:1) of patients treated with IMRT and IMRT + CIRT. Descriptive statistics were used to examine the baseline characteristics of the patients...

Squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) is the second leading form of skin cancer. In the elderly population, surgery may carry more risk and significant morbidity in comparison to less invasive forms of treatment. This case report describes the successful use of intralesional 5-fluorouracil (IL5-FU) to treat cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (cSCC). A 98-year-old white woman presented in early May 2017 with a 3.5-cm rapidly growing crusted nodule on her left proximal-lateral arm. She had a past medical history of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, atrial fibrillation, and heart failure...

PURPOSE: To assess radiation-induced fibrosis (RIF) using shear-wave elastography (SWE) in patients with breast cancer who received radiotherapy (RT) after breast conserving surgery. METHODS: Forty-one patients were enrolled in a prospective study before RT. SWE and B-mode ultrasonography were performed to measure elasticity. For quantitative measurement, the maximum elasticity value was measured in the tumor bed and non-tumor bed of the treated breast, and contralateral breast before RT and at 3, and 12 months after RT...

Advances in radiation techniques have enabled the precise delivery of higher doses of radiotherapy to tumours, while sparing surrounding healthy tissues. Consequently, the incidence of radiation toxicities has declined, and will likely continue to improve as radiotherapy further evolves. Nonetheless, ionizing radiation elicits tissue-specific toxicities that gradually develop into radiation-induced fibrosis, a common long-term side-effect of radiotherapy. Radiation fibrosis is characterized by an aberrant wound repair process, which promotes the deposition of extensive scar tissue, clinically manifesting as a loss of elasticity, tissue thickening, and organ-specific functional consequences...

BACKGROUND: Radiation therapy (RT) performed before anterior cervical spine surgery (ACSS) may cause fascial plane fibrosis, decreased soft-tissue vascularity, and vertebral body weakness, which could increase the risk of esophageal and major vessel injuries, wound complications, and construct subsidence. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate whether preoperative RT performed for metastatic spine cancer (MSC) at the cervical spine increases perioperative morbidity for ACSS. METHODS: Forty-nine patients who underwent ACSS for treatment of MSC at the cervical spine were retrospectively reviewed...