Study of teratogenic effects after verapamil administration in pregnant albino rats / Nawal Ahmed Sayed Ibrahium Elabasawy ; Supervised Mohamed Ahmed Badwy , Abdelwahab Elghareeb , Heba Ali Abdelrahman

Thesis (M.Sc.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Science - Department of Biotechnology

This study was conducted in an attempt to prove the teratogenic potential of Verapamil on pregnant rat's offspring. Female rats were administrated with Verapamil (0.1 mg/Kg) by gastric tube from 5th to 19th day of pregnancy. At 20th day the animals were sacrificed and dissected in order to remove the uterus then open it to get the fetuses and record the mortality rate, growth parameters, skeletal malformations, histological study of placenta, fetal liver, mother liver.The results could be summarized in the following points: The pregnant rats treated orally with therapeutically dose of Verapamil during gestation period (5th - 19 th) showed no external signs of toxicity (nasal or vaginal bleeding) and no mortality cases were recorded but there was a non-significant decrease in the mother weight gain of the treated group when compared with the control.There was a significant decrease in the placental weight throughout the treated group (0.395± 0.022a ) when compared with the control (0.515 ± 0.08).The treated pregnant rat's uterus showed asymmetrical distribution of fetuses in the two uteri horns and reduced number of fetuses, uterine horns showing clearly visible embryonic resorbed sites.The treated group showed a reduction in the pre-implantation loss index % and increased in the pre- and post-implantation loss index% There were a significant (P{u2264} 0.05) reduction in fetus weight (1.80 ± 1.48a ) of animals from treated group in comparison with the control one (2.900 ± 0.775)

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