Ghrelin as a novel therapy for radiation combined injury.

Asha Jacob, Kavin G Shah, Rongqian Wu, Ping Wang

Laboratory of Surgical Research, The Feinstein Institute for Medical Research, Manhasset, New York, United States of America and Department of Surgery, North Shore University Hospital and Long Island Jewish Medical Center, Great Neck, New York, United States of America.

Molecular medicine (Cambridge, Mass.) 2010 Mar

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The threat of nuclear terrorism has led to growing worldwide concern about exposure to radiation. Acute radiation syndrome, or radiation sickness, develops after whole-body or a partial-body irradiation with a high dose of radiation. In the terrorist radiation exposure scenario, however, radiation victims likely suffer from additional injuries such as trauma, burns, wounds or sepsis. Thus, high-dose radiation injuries and appropriate therapeutic interventions must be studied. Despite advances in our understanding of the pathophysiology of radiation injury, very little information is available on the therapeutic approaches to radiation combined injury. In this review, we describe briefly the pathological consequences of ionizing radiation and provide an overview of the animal models of radiation combined injury. We highlight the combined radiation and sepsis model we recently established and suggest the use of ghrelin, a novel gastrointestinal hormone, as a potential therapy for radiation combined injury.

Citation

Asha Jacob, Kavin G Shah, Rongqian Wu, Ping Wang. Ghrelin as a novel therapy for radiation combined injury. Molecular medicine (Cambridge, Mass.). 2010 Mar;16(3-4):137-43