Morphological and Morphometric Study of Edaravone in Gentamicin-Induced Nephrotoxicity in Sprague Dawley Rats

Background: Gentamicin is an antibiotic that exhibits a broad spectrum of activity against microorganisms. Now a days uses of gentamicin are limited due to it potentially induces nephrotoxicity by selective accumulation of gentamicin in the kidney. Edaravone is a potent anti-oxidant. It strongly scavenges free radicals, protecting the cells against oxidative stress. Due to the contribution of oxidative stress to the pathogenesis of nephrotoxicity, we tested the hypothesis of edaravone in gentamicin-induced nephrotoxicity in rats. Methods: Various parameters including animal body weight, kidney weight, body weight to kidney ratio, serum creatinine level, serum urea level and histopathology were analysed in nephrotoxicity animals (induced with gentamicin 100 mg/kg/body weight i.p.,) with and without edaravone (10 mg/kg/body weight i,p.,). Results: Gentamicin control rats shows that the body weight and kidney weight has been decreased, while kidney weight to body weight ratio, serum creatinine and serum urea were increased significantly while comparing with the normal control rats. Moreover marked renal histopathological abnormalities like glomerulo sclerosis, glomerular hypertrophy, tubular cell degeneration and renal arteriolar hyalinization were seen in the gentamicin control rats. Edaravone attenuated the biochemical analyses such as, serum creatinine and serum urea. It also reduced the kidney weight to body weight ratio significantly. Edaravone treated groups showed slightly increase in the body weight and kidney weight but not statistically significant. Renal histopathological abnormalities were reduced in the edaravone treated rats as its compare with gentamicin control rats. Edaravone per se group shows no toxicity to normal rats. Conclusion: Our study suggests that edaravone ameliorated renal structural and functional abnormalities associated with experimental nephrotoxicity. With the biochemical parameters and histopathological studies, we concluded that edaravone reduced the toxicity caused by gentamicin and can be used against nephrotoxicity.