Retinoic acid treatment abrogates elastase-induced pulmonary emphysema in rats.
Pulmonary emphysema is a common disease in which destruction of the lung's gas-exchange structures (alveoli) leads to inadequate oxygenation, disability and frequently death; lung transplantation provides its only remediation. Because treatment of normal rats with all-trans-retinoic acid increases the number of alveoli, we tested whether a similar effect would occur in rats with emphysema. Elastase was instilled into rat lungs, producing changes characteristic of human and experimental emphysema: increased lung volume reflecting a loss of lung elastic recoil, larger but fewer alveoli and diminished volume-corrected alveolar surface area due to destruction of alveolar walls. Treatment with all-trans-retinoic acid reversed these changes providing nonsurgical remediation of emphysema and suggesting the possibility of a similar effect in humans.[1]References
- Retinoic acid treatment abrogates elastase-induced pulmonary emphysema in rats. Massaro, G.D., Massaro, D. Nat. Med. (1997) [Pubmed]
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