Spironolactone ameliorates the radiation-induced late fibrosis in salivary glands in a rat model

Background: management of head and neck cancer includes surgicalresection, chemotherapy and radiotherapy (rt). we hypothesized thatpre-radiation treatment with a mineralocorticoid receptor (mr) antagonist,spironolactone (s), may have radioprotective effect on salivary glands.materials and methods: study included 30 adult female wistar albino rats.rats were divided into four groups (g); g1, control group; g2, rt-only group,g3, s-only group; g4, rt plus s group. rats were sacrificed at 6th hour; 21stand 100th days after rt. salivary gland samples were taken for microscopicalexamination. results: periductal-perivascular inflammation scores in 21st and100th days tended to be higher in g2 than in g4, but the difference was notstatistically significant. periductal-perivascular fibrosis score was significantlydifferent between the groups in 100th day (p: 0.010). pairwise comparisonsrevealed that periductal-perivascular fibrosis scores were different betweeng1 and g2 (p: 0.014), g2 and g3 (p: 0.014), g2 and g4 (p: 0.034). conclusions:mr blockade with s, when initiated before rt, ameliorates lateradiation-induced fibrosis in the submandibular glands.