Changes in sternal marrow following roentgen-ray therapy to the spleen in chronic granulocytic leukemia

Medium-mediated intercellular communication is involved in bystander responses of X-ray-irradiated normal human fibroblasts

“…Although early literature reports damage to the bone marrow in the sternum of children receiving low LET irradiation to the spleen for chronic granulocyte leukemia (Parsons et al, 1954), development of mammary tumors in rats injected with plasma, or ultrafiltrates of blood from low LET-irradiated rats or sheep (Souto, 1962), and chromosomal damage in lymphocytes held in shortterm culture with plasma from X-irradiated patients (Hollowell and Littlefield, 1967), the mechanisms of the bystander effects induced by low LET radiation are not clear. More recently, interest in the bystander effect by ionizing radiation arose from studies showing induction of sister chromatid exchanges (SCEs) in monolayer cultures exposed to very low fluences of high LET a-particles, such that only a small fraction of the cells in the population were traversed by an a-particle (Nagasawa and Little, 1992).…”

Intercellular Communication in Response to Radiation Induced Stress: Bystander Effects in Vitro and in Vivo and Their Possible Clinical Implications

“…Bystander effect in tissues distant from the radiation field, named "abscopal effect", was observed more than 50 years ago as haematological changes of bone marrow in children, who were given radiotherapy to the spleen in the treatment of leukemia (Parsons et al, 1954). Until recently, the abscopal effect was referred to the distant effects seen after local radiation therapy.…”

Radiation-induced genomic instability and bystander effects: inter-related nontargeted effects of exposure to ionizing radiation

“…Probably the first publication dates from 1954 when damage to the sternal bone marrow of children receiving splenic irradiation for chronic granulocytic leukaemia was reported (Parsons et al, 1954). Subsequently, it was reported that plasma from Xirradiated patients could cause chromosome damage in lymphocytes held in short-term culture (Hollowell and Littlefield, 1967) and a number of reports confirmed that a transferable factor capable of causing chromosome breaks in unirradiated lymphocytes was induced by total-body irradiation (Goh and Sumner, 1968;Scott, 1969;Lloyd and Moquet, 1985) with considerable interindividual variation in both production and response (Littlefield et al, 1969).…”