Jornal de Citologia e Histologia

Carbaryl, A Pesticide Causes "Toxic Hepatitis" in Albino Rats

Abstract

Sajad Hamid, Reeha Mahajan and Harbans Singh

Pesticides are one of the most alarming toxic substances that are deliberately added to our environment. Food and agricultural organization (FAO) has defined the term pesticide as: Any substance or mixture of substances intended for preventing, destroying or controlling any pest including vectors of human or animal disease, unwanted species of plants or animals causing harm during or otherwise interfering with the production, processing, storage, transport or marketing of food, agricultural commodities, wood and wood products or animal feedstuffs or substances which may be administered to animals for control of insects, arachnids or other pests in or on their bodies [1]. But it is a matter of concern that along with the pests, they prove harmful to many other living beings on this planet as well as human beings including newborns [2]. CARBARYL, a synthetic 1-napthyl-N-methyl carbamate is being used extensively or its broad-spectrum activity in commercial agriculture, poultry, livestock, home and garden pest control. It was the most frequently detected carbamate in juice samples studied [3]. Thorough scanning reveals that there is dearth of literature regarding the histopathological changes in liver associated with administration of carbaryl which has prompted us to initiate this study as liver plays an important role in the first pass metabolism of carbaryl. The present study was conducted on 40 albino rats. The adult albino rats (150-200 gm) were injected with 200 mg/ kg body weight of carbaryl intrapeitoneally, five days a week for 30 days. Controls were maintained. There was a significant increase in weight of the experimental rats recorded before the onset of the experiment & prior to their sacrifice (p<0.001) as compared to the controls. The rats were sacrificed within 24 hours of the last injection. The blocks of the liver were prepared for section cutting with a microtome by paraffin wax embedding method. Sections of 5-7 μm thickness were cut and stained with Haematoxylin and Eosin stain. In the study, the histomorphological changes, in the liver of Carbaryl treated rats was significantly different from that of the normal and the control rats. The disheveled pattern of the one cell thick orderly arrangement of hepatocytic cords, evidence of increased cellular metabolism co-existent with ballooning degeneration, councilman bodies, inflammatory infiltrate around the portal triads along with the dilatation of the blood vessels and the bile canaliculi were seen as signs of degeneration. B enucleated hepatocytes were suggestive of regenerative attempts by the degenerative cells. These findings are highly conclusive of toxic hepatitis induced by an insecticide, Carbaryl.