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Updated: May 2, 2026
Quantifying Cognitive Decrements Caused by Cranial Radiotherapy
Published on: October 18, 2011
[Erythropoietin as a protective factor in rat CNS cells receiving radiotherapy -an in vitro study]
Álvaro Gomez-De la Riva1, Alberto Isla-Guerrero, Antonio García-Grande
1Hospital Universitario Materno Infantil La Paz, Madrid, Espana.
Aim:
To investigate the effect of erythropoietin in cultured rat cerebral cortex cells receiving radiotherapy.
Materials And Methods:
Cerebral cortex was taken from 17-day-old Wistar rat embryos and placed in culture. At 72 hours, the cultures were divided into two groups, one receiving 30 pM erythropoietin alpha and the other was the control group. Both groups received 6 Gy from a Phoenix apparatus and were incubated for another 24 hours before fixation in 4% formaldehyde. TUNEL technique was employed to calculate the number of apoptotic cells in the irradiated cultures.
Results:
Apoptosis affected 25.22% of the cells cultured without erythropoietin and 15.5% in the group receiving erithropoyetin. Student's t-test was used to analyse quantitative variables and showed a significant difference in apoptosis between the two groups (p < 0.0001).
Conclusion:
Our in vitro experimental model demonstrated that erythropoietin effectively prevents apoptosis in irradiated rat SNC cells, opening new fields for investigation into protective agents for the nervous system.
