[Effects of chronic alcoholism and alcoholic detoxication on rat submandibular glands: morphometric study]

This work is a morphometric study of several parenquimatous structures of rats' submandibular gland which were submitted to experimental cronic alcoholism and others which were recovered after detoxication during 30 days. It was used 3 groups (5 rats in each group): Control, Alcoholic and Detoxicated. The fact of alcohol acts in body tissues, take us to believe that changes in the submandibular glands morphology of rats which were submitted to cronic alcoholism can happen. In fact, after alcoholisation and detoxication there is an occurence of significant statistically differences when we confront the 3 groups one another (two by two) in reference to the body weight of the animals (g) and the submandibular gland weight (mg). Usually, occurred a decrease in the alcoholic group and in the detoxicated group as well, towards the control group and a significant increase of the body and gland weight from the detoxicated group in relation to the alcoholic group. Regarding the total volume of the several gland structures evaluated, it was verified significant statistically differences in the acinar and granulous duct compartments, in which the alcoholic and the detoxicated groups presented a smaller total volume than the control group. About the other stereologic parameters evaluated, there was not significant statistically differences among the groups neither among the several gland structures evaluated.