The main purpose of this study was to investigate the possible histological effects of two presently marketing antirheumatic drugs namely celecoxib and leflunomide on the liver and kidney of pregnant albino rats and their delivered newborns. Histological investigation of the maternal treated liver revealed massive hepatotoxicity including deformity, degeneration and hypertrophoid of hepatocytes, erosion of endothelial cells of blood vessels while, the newborn experimental rats displayed massive degeneration of hepatocytes associated with perivascular leucocytic infiltration. On the other side, the kidney of the treated mothers have a number of deformities as peritubular inflammatory cellular infiltration, degeneration of lining epithelial cells and swollen glomeruli, however, their offspring showed only the last two defects. The transmission electron microscopic examination on the same maternal organs confirmed the light microscopic investigation and revealed that experimental groups have a dramatic alteration of hepatic tissues in terms of heterochromatin accumulation, irregular nuclear membrane and marked deformity of cytoplasmic organelles as mitochondrial degeneration, endoplasmic reticulum fragmentation, and glycogen granules distribution. The kidney of the experimental pregnant mothers displayed a diverse number of histopathological abnormalities which included reduction or thickening in the glomeruli basement membrane, endoplasmic reticulum fragmentation, either mitochondrial swelling or atrophy, severe chromatin clumping and deformity of nuclear membrane. The degree of these histopathological effects depended on the applied drug. The results obtained from the study are discussed in the light of their counterparts from other related previous studies.
Key words: Antirheumatic drugs, Kidney, Liver, Histology, Ultrastructure, Teratology
|
