Problems of Radiation Medicine and Radiobiology

Application of photo-magnetic therapy for treatment of skin radiation damage in rats

L. I. Simonova-Pushkar, V. Z. Gertman, L. V. Bilogurova
State Institution “S.P. Grigoriev Institute for Medical Radiology of the National Academy of Medical Sciences of Ukraine”, Pushkins'ka str, 82, Kharkiv, 61024, Ukraine

Objective: To improve methods of prevention and treatment of local radiation injury to the skin using the photo-magnetic therapy.
Materials and methods. Study was conducted on 60 male Wistar rats with 180–200 g bodyweight. The femoral area right hind limb of rats was locally irradiated by X-ray unit at a dose of 80.0 Gy. Exposed animals were divided into 2 groups: control and experimental. The rats of the experimental group received 2 courses of photo-magnetic therapy on the irradiated skin. The observations were carried out for 60 days.
Methods – clinical, histological and statistical.
Results. Local irradiation of rat skin causes the development of radiation ulcers in 60–70 % of the animals with the destruction of the structure in all layers of the skin. Spontaneous healing of radiation ulcer lasts at least two months with no complete skin recovery. Photo-magnetic therapy applied immediately after irradiation resulted in two-fold-decrease of frequency of radiation ulcer incidence, accelerated the complete healing for 3 weeks and to ameliorated their progress. Histological examination showed that the photo-magnetic therapy reduced the extent of damage to all layers of the skin with restoration of epidermis and dermis structure and reduced the degree of inflammatory and destructive processes in the dermis.
Conclusions. Photo-magnetic therapy produces a significant positive treatment effect by significantly reducing the inflammatory and destructive processes in all layers of the skin, stimulates the blood flow recovery in damaged tissue both with fibroblast proliferation and synthesis activation of native collagen fibers and other components of connective tissue, so almost a month accelerates ulcer healing radiation.

Key words: local X-ray irradiation, local radiation injury, radiation ulcers, photo-magnetic therapy, skin, rats.

Problems of radiation medicine and radiobiology. 2014;19:458-470.