ABSTRACT

Background: Head and neck cancer patients treated with radiotherapy suffer severe side effects during and following their treatment. Efforts to decrease toxicity of irradiation to normal tissue, organs and cells have led to searching for cytoprotective agent. Investigations for effective and non-toxic compounds with radioprotective capability led to increasing interest in antioxidant such as Thymoquinone (TQ).

 ABSTRACT

Objective: Eye morbidity is widely observed in patients receiving total body irradiation prior to bone marrow transplantation or radiotherapy for ocular or head and neck cancers. Cataract blindness is the major cause of preventable blindness worldwide, especially in the developing countries. The aim of this study was to investigate whether propolis and caffeic acid phenethyl ester (CAPE) prevent radiation-induced cataractogenesis.