Methods to assess radiation-induced fibrosis in mice

Therapeutic radiation is used to treat a variety of cancers in organs and tissues throughout the body. Exposure of benign normal tissue to radiation can result in late injury in a subset of patients. Radiation induced fibrosis is one chronic, progressive late toxicity of radiation exposure that can occur in many organs and tissues, including skin and lung. Radiation fibrosis has few effective treatments. The process of radiation fibrosis is known to involve many mitogenic and immunomodulatory cytokines, inflammatory programs, and processes such as stem cell senescence. Murine models of radiation fibrosis can be used to evaluate agents that may prevent, mitigate, or treat this injury. Here, we provide a detailed protocol for the development of radiation induced dermal and pulmonary fibrosis in mice and describe protocols for the measurement of this injury in treated tissue.