Medicina Nuclear e Radioterapia

Ionizing Radiation Increases the Circulatory Endothelial Progenitor Cell Population in Glottic Cancer Patients

Abstract

Sayantan Bhattacharyya, Tapas Maji, Dilip Kumar Ray, Anup Kumar Bhowmick and Nabendu Murmu

Background: Cancer of the throat or larynx is one of the predominant cancer types in India and Intensity Mediated Radiation Therapy (IMRT) is the most crucial treatment regimen against the disease. We aimed to examine the effect of Circulating Endothelial Progenitor (CEP) cells in Laryngeal cancer patients undergoing radiation therapy.

Patients: Five Laryngeal cancer patients were selected for the work. All patients were suffering from Squamous Cell Carcinoma (SCC) of the glottis and admitted to the institute with CT1 and CT2 stage of tumor with no lymph node metastasis (CN0). After thorough check up the patients were subjected to conventional mononodal radiotherapy (IMRT), fractionated doses to the highest dose (1.8-2 Gy per fraction). Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells (PBMC) was isolated from all 5 patients and flow cytometric analysis (using anti CD 44 and CD309 monoclonal antibody) was performed before and after completion of the entire course.

Results: Results showed upregulation of the CEPs in all cases after exposure to radiotherapy. Additional immunofluorescence staining confirmed the rapid increase of these cells indicating a strong correlation between the exposure to ionizing radiation and stem cell expression in patients suffering from Glottic cancer.

Conclusion: Increase in the CEPs suggests that the tissue damage due to radiation exposure activate the stem cell niche and allures CEPs in the peripheral blood for angiogenesis. Further prospective assessments are warranted.