Effects of intratracheal pretreatment with yttrium chloride (YCl3) on inflammatory responses of the rat lung following intratracheal instillation of YCl3.

We investigated pulmonary clearance of yttrium (Y) and acute lung injury following intratracheal instillation (i.t.) of yttrium chloride (YCl3) in saline- or YCl3-pretreated rats (30 days before the second challenge). About 67% of the initial dose of Y remained in the lung even 31 days after the i.t. treatment. The pretreatment with YCl3 significantly reduced i.t.-YCl3-induced increases in biochemical inflammatory indicators in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF), such as lactate dehydrogenase, beta-glucuronidase, and alkaline phosphatase activities and protein concentration, while the pretreatment increased the number of polymorphonuclear leukocyte (PMN) in BALF. These results suggest that the augmentation of PMN infiltration does not play an important role, if any, in i.t. YCl3-induced increases in biochemical indicators in BALF. The reduction of the increases in those biochemical inflammatory indicators may be due, at least in part, to the increase of manganese-superoxide dismutase (Mn-SOD) activity in the lung tissue, because the lung Mn-SOD activity in the YCl3-pretreated group was two times higher than that of the saline-pretreated group.