ABSTRACT
Swine were among the earliest large animal models used in radiobiology research (Brown and Johnson, 1970, 1971; Lefaix and Daburon, 1998), but largely became replaced by the dog, because of the difficulties in handling them in the laboratory in the 1950s and 1960s. There is a resurgence of the use of swine for particular types of radiobiology research, in part, owing to the improved technical procedures in handling and anesthesia that have been developed since then. Specifically, the areas in which swine are utilized are for studies involving total body irradiation, immune suppression, skin and muscular damage, pulmonary fibrosis, CNS paralysis, digestive system damage, tissue and bone marrow transplant, and vascular injury. This section provides an overview of the most significant areas of interest for using porcine models.
