The teratogenic potential of bone wax extract in rats

This study evaluated the teratogenic defects of rat brain, eye, heart, urogenital and skeletal systems after po administration of bone wax saline extract on days 9-13 of gestation. The experiment involved 5 groups of 6 pregnant wistar rats each. The vehicle control group received only 50.0 ml distilled water/kg; 3 test groups received 12.5, 25.0 or 50.0 ml of bone wax saline extract/kg; and the last group received 100 mg caffeine/kg as positive control. On the 21st day of gestation all the animals were sacrificed under ether anesthesia and fetuses were collected for routine teratological evaluations. There was no significant change in maternal body weight or food consumption and no external, visceral, skeletal and histological abnormalities in the vehicle control and bone wax dosed groups. Abnormalities were observed in the positive control group.