OBJECTIVETo investigate the effect of blood-cooling and promoting drugs (BCPD) on the dy-namic changes of collagens and the expressions of interleukin-6 (IL-6) and transforming growth factor beta (TGF-beta) in lung tissue of rats with radiation-induced lung injury (RILI) to explore the effects and action mech-anism of BCPD in preventing and treating RILI.

METHODSOne hundred and sixty Wistar female rats were ran-domly divided into the radiation group, the treatment group, the blank control group and the drug control group. The rats in the first two groups received right hemithoracic fractionated radiation, and those in the treatment group were given BCPD. Rats in the other two groups were not irradiated and BCPD was given to rats in the drug control group. The rats were sacrificed in batches (8 of each group in every batch) at the 3rd, 5th, 8th, 12th and 26th week of the experimental period, and their lung was taken for observing the dynamic changes and distribution of collagen and the expressions of IL-6 and TGF-beta with HE staining, picrosirius red staining and immunohistochemical staining respectively.

RESULTSThe fibroblast proliferated obviously from the 3rd week after the first radiation in the radiation group, and the type I collagen and the proportion of type I and III collagen were significantly elevated along the time going and the radiation dose increasing, became significantly higher than those in the treatment group at all the time points (P <0.01). In the radiation group the expression of IL-6 and TGF-beta reached their peaks at the 8th and 12th week, respectively, and the levels was significantly lower in the treatment than that in the radiation group at any detecting time points (P <0.01).

CONCLUSIONBCPD applied in the early stage of radiation can suppress the inflammatory and fibrogenic cytokine expressions, inhibit the synthesis of collagens and adjust the proportion of type I and III collagen, so as to re-lieve the early-stage inflammatory reaction and the anaphase lung fibrosis in RILI rats.

Animals ; Drugs, Chinese Herbal ; therapeutic use ; Female ; Immunohistochemistry ; Interleukin-6 ; biosynthesis ; Lung Injury ; drug therapy ; metabolism ; pathology ; Phytotherapy ; Radiation Injuries, Experimental ; drug therapy ; metabolism ; pathology ; Random Allocation ; Rats ; Rats, Wistar ; Transforming Growth Factor beta ; biosynthesis