Aim of the study: To study the effect of Thespesia populnea on Cisplatin induced Nephrotoxicity.
Materials and methods: Experiments were conducted on Male Sprague Dawley Rats (4-6 weeks old) weighing 100-120g B.Wt. The drug under study was cisplatin, which is an anticancer drug. Thespesia populnea extract was used to test its ability to alleviate the harmful effects of cisplatin. The animals were divided into three groups: Group I was considered as normal, Group II was given a single dose of cisplatin (6 mg/kg/b.wt., i.p) and they constituted the control animals and Group III was treated with cisplatin along with Thespesia populnea (5 mg/kg/b.wt., i.p) for 10 consecutive days.
Results: Administration of cisplatin resulted in significant (P < 0.05) increase in the levels of serum urea (137 ± 1.6), creatinine (1.69 ± 0.14), ALT (96.18 ± 3.44), AST (80.84 ± 3.34) and bilirubin (4.57 ± 0.08) as compared to normal animals. On the other hand, introduction of Thespesia populnea extract caused a significant (P < 0.05) reduction in the levels of serum markers namely urea (112 ± 2.16), creatinine (0.54 ± 0.004), ALT (76.4 ± 1.45), AST (58.80 ± 1.6) and bilirubin (3.96 ± 0.85).
Discussion: Increase in the levels of urea and creatinine in serum as well as ALT, AST and bilirubin is suggestive of both kidney and liver damage. Thespesia populnea extract ameliorated cisplatin induced kidney and liver damage as indicated by reduction in the levels of serum urea, creatinine, AST, ALT and bilirubin. Reduction in the levels of these biochemical markers is an indication of regeneration process. Thus it is concluded that the extract might contain nephroprotective compounds such as flavonoids, alkaloids, etc. which are responsible for alleviating cisplatin induced toxicity.