Photodynamic therapy for airway stenosis in rabbit models.
BACKGROUND
Acquired airway stenosis in childhood is resistant to conventional treatment. We examined whether endoscope-assisted photodynamic therapy (PDT) is effective for airway stenosis in animal models of which the pathophysiologic progressions are similar to those of clinical cases showing rapid deterioration.


METHODS
Tracheal mucosa-scraped rabbits were administered IV porfimer sodium (Photofrin; Wyeth K.K., Tokyo, Japan) [2 mg/kg], and the tracheal lesions were irradiated with 630 nm of light emitted from a cylindrical diffuser tip via a transtracheal approach.


RESULTS
Rabbits without PDT (untreated animals) showed dense granulation tissue in the scraped lesion, resulting in airway stenosis complicated with respiratory stridor. PDT ameliorated the degree of airway stenosis (p = 0.008) and reduced respiratory stridor; rabbits that received PDT showed patchy granulation tissue that was only 20 to 30% of the volume of that seen in the untreated animals. Survival time of rabbits that received PDT was significantly prolonged compared with that of untreated animals (p = 0.03).


CONCLUSIONS
PDT was effective for airway stenosis in rabbit models. This suggests that PDT has the potential as a new therapeutic method for airway stenosis originating from granulation tissue.
Nakagishi
Yoshinori
Y
Department of Medical Engineering, National Defense Medical College, 3-2 Namiki, Tokorozawa, Saitama 359-8513, Japan. grd1708@ndmc.ac.jp
Morimoto
Yuji
Y
Fujita
Masanori
M
Morimoto
Noriko
N
Ozeki
Yuichi
Y
Maehara
Tadaaki
T
Kikuchi
Makoto
M
D000818:Animals; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D008297:Male; D010778:Photochemotherapy; D011817:Rabbits; D014135:Tracheal Stenosis / Q000188:drug therapy*