A study on the possible protective effect of DDB and L-carnitine on ribavirin-induced testicular toxicity in rats / Maha Moustafa Kamel Abdellatif ; Supervised Ezz Eldeen Saeed Eldenshary , Helmy Moawad Sayed Ahmed , Nahed Mohamed Ahmed Hassanein

Thesis (M.Sc.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Pharmacy - Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology

Background: Ribavirin (RBV) is a broad-spectrum antiviral drug. Ribavirin, associated with pegylated-interferon played a crucial role in the treatment of chronic hepatitis C. In the present era of new potent direct acting antiviral agents, RBV is still used in the guidelines on the management of HCV infection, and HIV/HCV co-infec»ted patients. Recent studies showed that ribavirin acts on cancer cells by inhibiting eukaryotic translation initiation factor eIF4E/Ý-catenin signaling, a place which is still devoted to the drug. The increased incidence of toxicity of antiretroviral therapy has necessitated proper evaluation of their effects on reproductive health. Diphenyl dimethyl bicarboxylate (DDB) has been used as hepatoprotectant adjuvant in the treatment of liver diseases, such as chronic viral hepatitis, chemical or drug induced hepatic damage. Despite the wide clinical applications of DDB, its benefits in the field of male infertility have not yet been investigated. To our knowledge, this is a pioneer study, which investigates the effect of DDB administration on male infertility. L-carnitine (LC) is a vitamin-like substance that is structurally similar to amino acids. Recent reports have suggested that carnitine has pleiotropic functions; LC has DNA-repair capability and is effective in determining an improvement in sperm parameters, reduction of the levels of ROS in seminal fluid, and so would be able to improve the quality of semen

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