Acute and Chronic Toxicity of Thioacteamide and Alterations in Blood Cell Indices in Rats

Background: Thioacetamide (TAA) has been used extensively in the development of suitable animal models of acute and chronic liver injury employing various doses, times and routes of its administration, particularly in drinking water due to its resemblance with human liver fibrosis and cirrhosis. The aim of this study was to investigate and compare hematological alteration during the acute and chronic liver inflammation. Methods: Acute Liver inflammation was induced in Wistar rats via intraperitoneal injection of thioacetamide and the animals were sacrificed 12 h after the TAA administration. Induction of chronic liver inflammation was performed by continuous administration of TAA in the drinking water (200 mg/L) during 18 weeks of experiment. After that all animals were sacrificed and Blood samples were collected for further analysis. Results: Single intra peritoneal injection of TAA (300 mg/kg B.W.) induced an acute condition with hematological changes including leukocytosis with marked neutrophilia (P = 0.0429), lymphopenia, thrombocytosis as well as increased hemoglobin concentration (P < 0.05) and decline of erythrocytic count (P = 0.0009). Eighteen weeks of uninterrupted supply of TAA (200 mg/L) in drinking water lead to chronic inflammation and the hematological alterations were leucopenia (P = 0.0197) accompanied with neutropenia and thrombocytopenia. Increase in RBCs (P = 0.0073) and Hb contents was also observed with a decline of red cell indices. Conclusion: Taken together these findings we can conclude that the animals respond differently under acute and chronic inflammatory condition with TAA administration. Leukocytosis with marked neutrophilia, thrombocytosis as well as increased hemoglobin concentration and decline of erythrocytic count were observed in acute while leucopenia accompanied with neutropenia and thrombocytopenia and increase in RBCs, Hb and Hct was also observed with a decline of other red cell indices during chronic phase.