Local bone-marrow changes secondary to therapeutic irradiation.

Abstract

There is little available information in the literature concerning the effect in man of therapeutic roentgen doses to the mediastinum on the cellularity of the sternal bone marrow. Radiosensitivity of the various cellular components of the marrow has been thoroughly investigated (1–4). Irradiation affects the nucleic acids, principally desoxyribosenucleic acid (DNA) (5), with the production of chromosomal damage, associated with mitotic abnormalities (6–10) and perhaps a forced pathological cell maturation (11). The sequence of events in the bone marrow of animals and man exposed to total-body irradiation has been carefully studied (4, 12–14). After exposures in the range of 300 r there is a gradual depression of the bone marrow with regeneration usually occurring within twelve to sixteen weeks. Denstad (10) believes that after large doses of radiation, the cellularity of the marrow continues depressed. The pattern of recovery from injury follows the same cellular order as is seen initially (4). The most ...