Effect of mebendazole and ivermectin in experimental hepatic capillariasis B: histopathological and ultrastructural...

Although, rodents are the principle hosts of C. hepatica both true and spurious human infections have been reported. Over half of the reported cases, resulted in death with hepatic capillariasis being discovered at autopsy; even in cases which the infection was detected at laparotomy or liver biopsy, the patient died due to the lack of suitable treatment. Therefore, studies on experimental C. hepatica in mice were carried out on the way of reaching a full program for treatment. The drugs used were mebendazole and ivermectin. The alterations noted in the egg shell by TEM suggest the effectiveness of the drugs used, the eggs appeared to be deformed; the outer shell was broken and distorted in several places. Many pillars were fragmented. The inner layer was also affected, where it showed destruction of its outer lamellae. Ultrastructural changes in the liver cells showed dysplastic changes. It may be a sequelae of mechanical injury or direct antigenic insult of the parasite or their toxins on the liver cells. During the course of the present work, it was noticed that most of the granulomata were in the fibrotic stage denoting acceleration in the process of healing of the lesions and no freshly deposited ova and hence no active cellular granuloma.