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Published on: October 3, 2017
Photodynamic therapy for airway stenosis in rabbit models
Yoshinori Nakagishi1, Yuji Morimoto, Masanori Fujita
1Department of Medical Engineering, National Defense Medical College, 3-2 Namiki, Tokorozawa, Saitama 359-8513, Japan. grd1708@ndmc.ac.jp
Background:
Acquired airway stenosis in childhood is resistant to conventional treatment. We examined whether endoscope-assisted photodynamic therapy (PDT) is effective for airway stenosis in animal models of which the pathophysiologic progressions are similar to those of clinical cases showing rapid deterioration.
Methods:
Tracheal mucosa-scraped rabbits were administered IV porfimer sodium (Photofrin; Wyeth K.K., Tokyo, Japan) [2 mg/kg], and the tracheal lesions were irradiated with 630 nm of light emitted from a cylindrical diffuser tip via a transtracheal approach.
Results:
Rabbits without PDT (untreated animals) showed dense granulation tissue in the scraped lesion, resulting in airway stenosis complicated with respiratory stridor. PDT ameliorated the degree of airway stenosis (p = 0.008) and reduced respiratory stridor; rabbits that received PDT showed patchy granulation tissue that was only 20 to 30% of the volume of that seen in the untreated animals. Survival time of rabbits that received PDT was significantly prolonged compared with that of untreated animals (p = 0.03).
Conclusions:
PDT was effective for airway stenosis in rabbit models. This suggests that PDT has the potential as a new therapeutic method for airway stenosis originating from granulation tissue.
