Abstract: Acute radiation-induced skin reaction is a common complication during radiation therapy and no standard and effective therapy is available currently. Naringenin is a flavonoid compound rich in fruits. In order to evaluate whether naringenin ameliorates acute radiation skin dermatitis and relative mechanism, forty male rats were divided into 5 groups randomly, including external naringenin scream prophylactically group, external naringenin cream therapeutically group, intragastrical naringenin group, irradiation model group and control group. The cutaneous damage to the rats was assessed after irradiation, the serum IL-6 and MCP-1 of the rats were also detected, the pathological change of skin structure under microscope was observed, and the local macrophage expression was analyzed. To further explore whether naringenin has a protective effect on patients suffering from radiation, eleven patients with bilateral neck radiotherapy due to head and neck tumors were enrolled. Before radiotherapy, one side was applied naringenin cream and the other side was used as a control. The results showed that the use of naringenin significantly reduced the severity of radiation dermatitis in rats, reduced the concentration of serum IL-6 and MCP-1 and local macrophage infiltration, and improved the epidermal and dermal structural disorders caused by radiotherapy. Among the 11 patients, 2 patients had better dermatitis on the medication side than the control side. Therefore, this study showed that naringenin could improve radiation dermatitis in rats by reducing macrophage infiltration and inflammatory factor levels. Although the effectiveness is limite, it is safe clinically.

Key words: naringenin, acute skin dermatitis, macrophage, IL-6