Herbal treatment of selected hepatic affections in dogs / Rokia Ahmed Elsaid Abdel Hamid ; Supervised Wael Kelany , Sabry Ahmed Mousa , Shaimaa Mohamed Gouda

Thesis (M.Sc.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Veterinary Medicine - Department of Internal Medicine and Infection Diseases

Medicinal plants have a significant impact on the health and vitality of both humans and animals.Many herbal drugs have been reported to have a good effect on body gain and treatment of liver diseases in animals. In addition, they may act against the degenerative process of lipid peroxidation which involves free radicals and polyunsaturated fatty acids leading to hepatic pathogenesis.The present study was performed to evaluate the hepatoprotective activity of curcuma longa rhizome ethanolic extract, pomegranate peel ethanolic extract and the combination of curcuma longa and pomegranate peel extract on steroidal induced hepatopathy. Therefore 45 mongrel old dogs were enrolled in this study. Steroid hepatopathy was induced via dexamethasone injection for 14 days followed by administration of curcuma longa rhizome ethanolic extract for the first group, pomegranate peel ethanolic extract for the second group and mixture of both for the third group.The duration of treatment was two weeks. Clinical, blood samples, ultrasound and histopathological examinations were done at day 0, 7 and 14 of induction and day 7 and 14 post herbal administration. Haematological analysis revealed a significant decrease in Hb, RBCs in experimental hepatopathic dogs which began to increase after treatment by hebal extract, also hepatopathic dogs revealed significant increase in WBCS and returned to nearly normal value after treatment. Serum biochemical analysis revealed significant increase in ALT, AST and ALP in experimental hepatopathic dogs which began to decrease after treatment. Ultrasonography revealed increase in echogenicity of liver parenchyma in hepatopathic induced dogs and returned to nearly normal after treatment. From the obtained results we concluded that use of herbal extract improve the general health status and weight of the dogs in addition to its great hepatoprotective properties but the combination of both curcuma longa and pomegranate peel extract has excellent hepatoprotective properties and was superior to each of them alone. So they can be recommended as a potent product in protection and treatment of canine hepatopathy

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