Einstein (São Paulo) (Mar 2008)
Acute ketoprofen neurotoxicity in spinal cord of rats
Abstract
Objective: To evaluate possible spinal cord injury in rats followingdifferent doses of intrathecal ketoprofen. Methods: Animalswere divided into four groups of five rats each; 10 μl of anintrathecal solution were injected into the L6-S1 intervertebralspace. Ketoprofen 1% was injected in the first group; ketoprofen0.1% was injected in the second group; ketoprofen 0.01% wasinjected in the third group; and a sodium chloride 0.9% solutionwas injected in the Control Group. Histological sections of thecervical, thoracic, lumbar and sacral spine were analyzed toassess the number of neurons showing morphological changes.Variance analysis of repeated measurements was used forstatistical comparison between groups. The Wald test was usedfor multiple comparisons; the Shapiro-Wilk test (p = 0.0904) wasused for assess normality of data. The statistical significance wasp < 0.05. Results: The 1.0% Dose Group showed a moderatepercentage of thoracic (p = 0.0020) and cervical (p = 0.0210)spinal cord changes, compared to the Control Group. The 0.1%Dose Group showed a moderate percentage of cervical spinalcord changes (p = 0.0399) in comparison to the Control Group.There were no significant differences in the lumbar (p = 0.9878)and sacral (0.7300) spinal cord among the groups. Conclusions:Intrathecal injection of ketoprofen in rats, at a concentration equalto or less than 0.01%, may be used in studies aimed to elucidatecentral analgesia mechanisms produced by this drug.
