[Experimentally induced bleomycin pulmonary toxicity--comparison of the systemic (intraperitoneal) and local...

Effect of two methods of the systemic (intraperitoneal) administration and the local (intratracheal) instillation in small animal species for the evaluation of BLM-induced pulmonary fibrosis were compared. The grade of BLM-induced pulmonary fibrosis was different among age, species and strains of animals. This was more distinct in the intraperitoneal administration than in the intratracheal instillation. That is, BLM pulmonary fibrosis was severer in 15 and 30 weeks old ICR mice than in 4 weeks old young mice and also severer in the 15 weeks old ICR mice than in 15 weeks old Wistar rats and Hartley guinea pigs. In strains of mice, ICR and C3H mice were suffered from severer BLM pulmonary fibrosis than C57BL/6, BALB/c and DBA/2 mice. Most of BLM analogs produced pulmonary fibrosis to the same extent between the both methods, but three analogs (A5, B2 and BAPP) produced severe pulmonary fibrosis by intratracheal instillation compared to intraperitoneal administration. Furthermore, the pulmonary fibrosis in the intraperitoneal administration group often occurred in widespread subpleural region and that of the intratracheal group instillation group occurred in localized bronchoalveolar region. These results indicated the difference of pathogenesis of the pulmonary fibrosis between the both methods.