Hepatic alterations following experimental tetracycline toxicity in rats

✍ Scribed by Zussman, William V.

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1968
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 755 KB
• Volume: 162
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0003-276X
• DOI: 10.1002/ar.1091620305

✦ Synopsis

Toxic doses of tetracycline were injected intravenously in adult female rats to study the morphologic and cytochemical alterations produced in the liver. Fifty percent of the animals treated died within 48 hours; those surviving were sacrificed at 3, 7, 10 or 14 days later. Histologic sections of the livers from all animals were studied utilizing a specific fluorescence technique to determine tetracycline uptake and storage, and with histochemical procedures for alkaline phosphatase and succinic dehydrogenase activity.

Varying degrees of degeneration were observed in the livers of animals dying acutely. Basophilic lamellated bodies at seven days and focal venous thromboses at 14 days were noted in the surviving animals. Tetracycline fluorescence was visualized initially within bile canaliculi and random hepatic cells, and later within dilated interstitial spaces as well as i n the basophilic bodies. By 14 days residual fluorescence was limited to the parenchyma adjacent to thrombosed central veins. Succinic dehydrogenase activity was diminished within areas of tetracycline accumulation and minimally increased where the cytologic damage was greatest. Alkaline phosphatase activity present about the central veins and in areas of tetracycline-induced fluorescence reflected parenchymal distortion.