Researchers from City of Hope Medical Center in California, USA, have revealed an immune mechanism that may help protect healthy lung tissue from damage caused by radiation therapy, a discovery that could help develop therapeutic approaches that reduce inflammation and lung fibrosis in cancer patients.
The scientific journal Nature Communications reported in a study published today on Wednesday that researchers observed changes in the behavior of a type of immune cell known as "innate lymphoid cells," noting that exposure to radiation can alter their functions, shifting them from contributing to tissue protection to promoting inflammation and damage, through the activation of a specific molecular pathway.
Preclinical experiments showed that disabling this immune pathway helped reduce scarring and fibrosis of lung tissue, indicating the potential to target the discovered mechanism to minimize damage to healthy tissues during radiation therapy. Researchers believe that understanding this mechanism may pave the way for developing treatments targeting harmful immune responses, thereby helping to reduce pulmonary complications associated with radiation therapy while maintaining the treatment's effectiveness against tumors.
These results still require further studies to evaluate the safety and efficacy of this strategy in humans, and to determine the possibility of using it alongside approved radiation therapies. Radiation therapy is known as one of the types of cancer treatment, relying on the use of specific doses of radiation, usually high-energy X-rays, to destroy cancer cells or stop their growth, while striving to minimize damage to surrounding healthy tissues.
Source: Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA)
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