Blood and lymphatic microvessel damage in irradiated human skin: The role of TGF-β, endoglin and macrophages.

Background And Purpose: Microvascular damage is an important component of late radiation-induced morbidity. In our pre-clinical models, we demonstrated that repair of vessel injury is dependent on proper endoglin-mediated transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-β) signalling and that it can be affected by infiltrating macrophages. We now wanted to extend these findings in irradiated patients, using skin as a model system, and assess whether bisphosphonates could modulate the response.