ABSTRACT

Acute damage refers to lethality as well as to injury to individual organs after irradiation with high doses of ionizing radiation. Acute radiation damage can also be referred to as acute radiation sickness (ARS), which can cause mortality ranging from a few to 100% of irradiated individuals. The survivors of ARS show increased risk of developing cancer and non-neoplastic diseases long after irradiation. The search for a nontoxic agent that can prevent acute radiation damage when administered before irradiation, or that can mitigate acute radiation injury when administered after irradiation, began soon after the explosion of atom bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Several chemicals that can prevent radiation damage and biological agents that can mitigate radiation injury were identiœed, but most of them were considered toxic in humans. When the Cold War ended, the research on radiation protection markedly slowed down. During the last decade, the threat of an explosion of a dirty bomb by terrorists, an unintentional nuclear con£ict, and accidents at the nuclear power plants have increased. This has provided a new stimulus for the search for novel compounds or biologics that can prevent and/or mitigate ARS.