ABSTRACT
Objective: To evaluate anti-inflammatory effects of ramipril in experimentally induced rheumatoid arthritis (RA).Materials and Methods: Adjuvant induced arthritis model is used in this study.Albino-Wistar rats of either sex were used. Arthritis was induced by single intradermal injection of Freund’s complete adjuvant (FCA) suspended in oil inplantar region of right hind paw. Rats were divided in to three groups (n=8) namely disease control, standard and test group. Drug treatment was carried out for 21 days. Effect of test drug on acute inflammatory phase was evaluated on day 5 by assessing right hind paw edema. After 21 days animals were sacrificed and evaluated for left hind paw edema, weight changes, histo-pathological synovitis grading in left hind limbs and secondary lesion score.Results: Results showed that ramiprilsignificantly reduced right hind paw edema on day 5 (p<0.05). Ramipril also showed statistically significant weight gain (p<0.05), reduction of histo-pathological synovitis grade (p<0.05) as well as secondary lesion score (p<0.05).Conclusion:Our study suggests that ramiprilmay be used as an adjuvant anti-inflammatory agent in patients with RA. However this speculation needs to be confirmed clinically.