ABSTRACT
Pulmonary fibrosis is a disabling disease with a poor prognosis. Initial injury to the alveolar lining cells is common to most forms of pulmonary fibrosis. The methods to be described are culled from a miscellany of chemicals and other agents that, at one time or another, have been reported to induce pulmonary fibrosis in animals. Chemical injury of the lung is the most popular method in current use, and of the many potentially fibrogenic chemicals, bleomycin, paraquat, and butylated hydroxy toluene (BHT) are the most reliable. BHT has been used to induce acute injury to alveolar endothelial and epithelial cells. Bleomycin, an antibiotic derived from Streptomyces verticillatus, is used as a cytotoxic agent in the treatment of a variety of tumors including squamous cell carcinomas and lymphomas. The severity of the initial injury and the high mortality rate following the administration of a single large dose of paraquat have limited its use as an experimental model for pulmonary fibrosis.
