Cu, Fe, Mn, and Zn chelates offer a medicinal chemistry approach to overcoming radiation injury.

This review points out that treatment with essential metalloelement (Cu, Fe, Mn, and Zn) chelates facilitate tissue repair processes required for recovery from radiation injury including survival of lethally irradiated mice and rats. Results of studies pertaining to successful uses of bioavailable essential metalloelement chelates and combinations of them as well as aminothiols, Ca-channel blockers, acyl Melatonin homologs, substituted anilines, and curcumin radioprotectants are included in this review to suggest their use as chelates in overcoming radiation injury. Additional reports document that non-toxic doses of essential metalloelement chelates are effective in increasing survival and repairing radiation injury when administered before irradiation, in the radiation protection paradigm, and effective in increasing survival when used to treat after irradiation, in the radiorecovery paradigm. There are no other agents known to be effective in increasing survival when they are used to treat after irradiation. These approaches to radioprotection and radiorecovery offer promising approaches to facilitating recovery from radiation-induced injury experienced by patients undergoing radiation therapy for their neoplastic disease and by individuals who experience environmental, occupational, or accidental exposure to ionizing radiation. These individuals include those exposed to radiation resulting from nuclear accidents, the use of depleted uranium missiles, and astronauts undertaking space travel. Since there are no existing safe and effective treatments of radiation injury, studies of essential metalloelement chelates and combinations of them, as well as combinations of them with existing radioprotectant aminothiols, Ca-channel blockers, acyl Melatonin homologs, substituted anilines, and curcumin as radioprotectants seem worthwhile.