Cyclosporin A: a new promising and striking cercaricidal agent

ABSTRACT

The antischistosomal activity of cyclosporin A [CsA] was tested both in vitro and in vivo. All CsA-exposed cercariae died within less than 2.5 minutes. The number of dead cercariae showed direct association with the concentration of CsA [the higher the concentration, the more the cercaricidal activity]. In the same time, CsA was injected subcutaneously in male mice at a daily single dose of 50 mg/kg body weight/day for 3 [experiment I] and 2 [experiment II] successive days before infection with Schistosoma mansoni cercariae. Similarly, CsA exerted a remarkable protective lethal effect with mean efficacy of 100% and 98.7% in experiments I and II, respectively. Again, no significant differences in the weight and histopathology of either the liver or spleen between CsA-treated and control mice were noticed in either experiment. This was attributed to the unisexual cercarial infection with subsequent absence of Schistosoma eggs. In conclusion, CsA is emerging as an extremely valuable schistosomicidal agent