Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

Original Research Article | OPEN ACCESS

Investigation of non-pharmaceutical cures for acute pancreatitis induced by cerulein in rats

Ghada MA Mazen¹ , Mona I Shahin²

¹Biological Applications Department, Nuclear Research Center, Atomic Energy Authority, Egypt; ²Zoology Department, Women's Collage, Ain Shams University, Egypt.

For correspondence:- Ghada Mazen Email: gadamazen@yahoo.com Tel:+2021550540340

Accepted: 23 September 2018 Published: 31 October 2018

Citation: Mazen GM, Shahin MI. Investigation of non-pharmaceutical cures for acute pancreatitis induced by cerulein in rats. Trop J Pharm Res 2018; 17(10):2087-2092 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v17i10.28

© 2018 The authors.
This is an Open Access article that uses a funding model which does not charge readers or their institutions for access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read), which permit unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited..

Abstract

Purpose: To investigate the effect of N-acetylcysteine (NAC) alone or in combination with α-lipoic acid (ALA) on cerulein induced acute pancreatitis (AP) in rats.

Methods: AP was induced in 40 healthy male albino rats using a daily dose of cerulein (40 μg/kg) for three days. The rats were divided into four groups: control, recovery (pancreatitis rats left without treatment), NAC (pancreatitis rats injected intraperitoneal (i.p.) with 25 mg NAC/kg daily) and NAC+ALA (pancreatitis rats treated with 25 mg NAC+100mg ALA/kg daily). The levels of carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), cancer antigen₂₄₂ (CA₂₄₂), tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), interlukin-1β (IL-1β), deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and ribonucleic acid (RNA) as well as the enzyme activities (amylase, lipase and trypsinogen activation peptide) were determined after 2- and 4-weeks of treatment.

Results: Treatment with NAC or NAC+ALA led to a marked decrease in the levels of tumor markers, inflammatory cytokines, enzymes activity, DNA and RNA. The best amelioration effect occurred in the NAC+ALA rats group.

Conclusion: NAC induces a significant improvement in all studied parameters. Incorporation of NAC and ALA results in preeminent effects and it is considered an ideal cure for acute pancreatitis.

Keywords: Acute pancreatitis, Cerulein, N-acetylcysteine, ^5;-Lipoic acid