| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立陽明大學 === 放射醫學科學研究所 === 90 === Purpose: To determine whether the changes in plasma TGF-β1 level during radiotherapy could identify patients at risk for developing acute radiation mucositis and dermatitis.
Methods and Materials: Nasopharyngeal cancer patients treated with radiotherapy (RT) combined with chemotherapy (CT) were included in this study. Plasma TGF-β1 samples were obtained before, during and after RT. An enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was used to quantify plasma TGF-β1 concentrations. The degree of tumor regression, the grade of radiation toxicity including radiation-induced dermatitis and mucositis were recorded during and after RT.
Results: The partial remission (PR) rate was 100% in patients who finished the complete radiation treatment. Plasma TGF-β1 level decreased significantly during RT (p = 0.0029), particularly in the group of patients whose pre-treatment TGF-β1 level were ≧ 8 ng/ml (p = 0.001). On the other hand, the plasma TGF-β1 level during RT was increased significantly when the severity of radiation toxicity was greater than grade 2 (acute radiation morbidity score ≧ 2) (p = 0.0107).
Conclusion: Both tumor cells and inflammatory tissues contributed to the increase of elevated plasma TGF-β1 level. However, the tumor volume had more impact on the change of the plasma TGF-β1 level than inflammatory tissues did. Therefore, using the change of the plasma TGF-β1 level as an indicator to predict the radiation-induced dermatitis and/or mucositis in nasopharyngeal cancer patients during RT is probably not feasible, but may be applied to correlate the shrinkage of tumor volume after RT.
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