Structural and functional correlations in a large animal model of bleomycin-induced pulmonary fibrosis

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a severe and progressive respiratory disease with poor prognosis. Despite the positive outcomes from recent clinical trials, there is still no cure for this disease. Pre-clinical animal models are currently largely limited to small animals which have a number of shortcomings. We have previously shown that fibrosis is induced in isolated sheep lung segments 14 days after bleomycin treatment. This study aimed to determine whether bleomycin-induced fibrosis and associated functional changes persisted over a seven-week period. METHODS: Two separate lung segments in nine sheep received two challenges two weeks apart of either, 3U bleomycin (BLM),..