Fat Tissue Shown To Be Sensitive to Irradiation

Researchers have found that irradiation damages fat tissue. Moreover, radiation therapy directed at cancer management also damages healthy tissues.

Autologous transplant of tissues such as fat tissue has often been used to prevent the fibrosis, organ dysfunction, and necrosis that result from radiation treatment; however, the effects of radiation on the transplanted fat tissue had not until now been studied.

Researchers led by Dr. Béatrice Cousin from the Institut Louis Bugnard (Toulouse, France) characterized adipose tissue isolated from mice after total body irradiation. They found that fat pads weighed considerably less post-irradiation and had decreased adipocyte size and a reduced number of mature adipocytes. The investigators also observed severe decreases in the number of proliferating cells and increases in the number of dying cells.

Taken together, the data from Dr. Cousin's group suggest, "in terms of therapeutics, these acute affects may modify the reconstructive capacity of adipose tissue and therefore its use in autologous fat tissue transfer after irradiation.”

These findings, according to the researchers, question the effectiveness of transplanting adipose tissue during radiation therapy.

The study was published in the January 2009 issue of the American Journal of Pathology (AJP).

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Institut Louis Bugnard