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Effect of artemether on hematological parameters of healthy and uninfected adult Wistar rats
I O Osonuga1, O A Osonuga, A Osonuga
1Department of Physiology, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ikenne Remo, Nigeria.
Objective:
To evaluate the effect of short term artemether administration on some blood parameters in adult male Wistar rats.
Methods:
Sixty five albino rats with body weight of 190-220 g were used for the four-phased study. The animals were randomly divided into five groups. The first-four groups of 15 rats were further divided into 3 subgroups of 5 rats. The drug was administered orally at sub-optimal, therapeutic, and high doses of 25, 50 and 75 mg/kg bw, respectively to the rats for 1 day, 2 days and 3 days. Blood samples were collected by cardio-puncture from the rats for hematology at the end of each phase. The last group served as control, and they were given water ad libitum.
Results:
Artemether caused significant reduction (P<0.05) of the hematological profile of the animals in a dose dependent manner. Discontinuation of the drug use however showed gradual recovery of the depressed indices of the blood parameters.
Conclusions:
The results suggest that artemether can induce reversible changes in hematological profiles of rats by extension man. This can probably aggravate anemia when artemether is administered to malaria patients. Hence, the study supports the use of the drug with caution especially in patients prone to anemic tendencies.
