Effectiveness of radiotherapy + ozone on tumoral tissue and survival in tongue cancer rat model

Background: treating aggressive tongue cancer

Cancer of the tongue is a form of oral squamous cell carcinoma that tends to grow quickly and respond poorly once it reaches an advanced stage. Radiotherapy is a mainstay of treatment, but its benefit in advanced disease is limited and it damages healthy tissue alongside the tumour. Researchers have looked for ways to make radiotherapy more effective without adding to that harm. Ozone therapy, which alters how tissues handle oxygen and oxidative stress, has been proposed as a possible adjunct. This experiment set out to test whether adding ozone to radiotherapy changed the tumour and survival in a laboratory model of tongue cancer.

Study design: a five-group experiment in rats

The study used 36 female Sprague Dawley rats in which tongue cancer was induced with the carcinogen 4-nitroquinoline 1-oxide (4-NQO). The animals were divided into five groups: cancer only; cancer plus radiotherapy; cancer plus radiotherapy plus ozone; cancer plus ozone; and a healthy control group. Radiotherapy was given as 500 cGy across four sessions, and ozone was delivered by rectal insufflation at a concentration of 15 micrograms per millilitre. The researchers then examined the tongue tissue under the microscope (histopathology) to grade tumour change, and recorded how long the animals survived.

Findings: the combined group fared best

Among the treated groups, the animals that received radiotherapy together with ozone showed the greatest degree of histopathological improvement in the tumour tissue, more than radiotherapy alone. This combined group also lived longest, with survival extended compared with the animals given radiotherapy on its own. Ozone given by itself produced a smaller effect. The authors reported that the differences favouring the combined treatment were statistically significant.

What the authors concluded

The authors concluded that adding ozone to radiotherapy provided both histopathological improvement in the tumour and prolonged survival in this advanced tongue cancer model. They suggested that ozone may have potential as a supportive adjunct to radiotherapy and that the combination warranted further investigation.

Limitations of this study

This was a preclinical experiment in a small number of laboratory rats with chemically induced tumours, and results in animals do not translate directly to people. The groups were small, the study was carried out at a single centre, and the ozone dose and delivery route were fixed rather than tested across a range. No clinical outcomes in human patients were measured. Findings of this kind can point to directions for future research but cannot establish that the same effects would occur in humans. This study concerns an animal model of tongue cancer treated alongside radiotherapy. It does not examine ozone as a treatment for cancer itself, and these animal-model results do not translate directly to humans. Ozone therapy is a complementary approach and should always be discussed with your oncology team.