Late Effects of Radiation on Skeletal Muscle: An Open Field of Research

Abstract

This paper presents an overview of the state of the art about the late effects of ionizing radiation on skeletal muscle, helping new research and showing unexplored areas. For this, it was evaluated the interest reported by the scientific literature regarding the late effects in skeletal muscle resulting from exposure to ionizing radiation. Original and experimental papers mainly containing the key expressions “ionizing radiation” and “effects on skeletal muscle” were searched in computerized databases, and published in any language. Only 33 papers matched the search criteria. Analyzing the investigated radioinduced biological effects in those contributions, four topics were identified as being of major interest: 1) alterations in cellular metabolism and protein degradation; 2) repercussions on satellite cells; 3) formation of fibrosis and muscle atrophy; 4) tissue regeneration. It was verified that no study evaluated possible late effects related to either morphology or properties of skeletal muscles after an exposure to ionizing radiation. Several aspects do not make possible a successful replication; all experiments of eligible group of articles are discussed, such as, lack of raw data, use of no sound methodology and inappropriate statistical technique. Briefly, the subject of this review is an open field of research.