Researchers successfully treat previously lethal doses of radiation

[Rich66]

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-0...hal-doses.html


Researchers successfully treat previously lethal doses of radiation
January 5, 2012

While doctors already use antibiotics to treat radiation sickness, researchers have found that adding bactericidal/permeability-increasing protein (BPI), a protein found in immune systems, allowed them to increase the survival rates of mice exposed to toxic levels of radiation to nearly 80 percent.

Humans are known to be more sensitive than mice to the endotoxins treated by BPI, making a treatment such as this potentially more effective in humans. These are commonly used drugs that have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use in other scenarios such as bone marrow transplants and radiation treatment.

So..is this approach being used to help cancer patients facing radiation? (Eg. Whole brain radiation) Maybe this could reduce side effects and/or enable fewer high dose treatments.