Dissemination of leishmania to organs of mice experimentally infected with Leishmania tropica.

Swiss strain albino mice were inoculated intradermally in a shaved area above the tail with Leishmania tropica strain. The dissemination of the parasites to various organs and distant cutaneous sites was followed up to 16 weeks. The infection was detected in the metastatic foci by examination of impression smears, inoculated culture tubes containing Tanabe's medium with specimen obtained from lesions and by histopathological changes. It was found that the parasite disseminated from the site of inoculation to visceral organs namely: the liver, spleen, kidney and lung. However, no invasion of the testis was observed throughout the experiment. Metastatic cutaneous lesions occurred late in the infection and was observed only in 2 animals. Cutaneous metastatic lesions developed exclusively on the tail and the face.

Aminosidine sulphate in experimental giardiasis.

Giardia lamblia infection may be asymptomatic or may produce diarrhea with or without malabsorption. Many drugs were used for treatment of giardiasis, but none proved to be ideal since all have potential troublesome side effects as they are absorbed from the intestine. In this study, a locally acting drug aminosidine-sulphate (gabbroral) has been tried in treatment of experimental giardiasis in a rat model under different conditions of gastric acidity which is one of the main local factors affecting the pathogenicity of the organism. The best results were obtained in the group with hyperacidity which was induced by indomethacin (indocid) with significant improvement in the pathological picture and parasitic count. While in experimental animals with normal acidity there was only partial eradication of the parasite. However, in the group with hypoacidity induced by cimetidine (cimetex), the drug showed no beneficial effects since most organisms invaded the deeper layers of the intestine escaping the local action of the drug.

Oral contraceptive pills in experimental schistosomiasis mansoni: parasitological, biochemical, histopathological and ultrastructural studies.

This study examines the effect of intake of oral contraceptive steroid in S. mansoni infected mice as regards parasitological, biochemical, histopathological and ultrastructural changes. Three groups were studied group I: S. mansoni infected mice received contraceptive pills six weeks post-infection (p.i.), group II: S. mansoni infected control and group III: non-infected control. Administration of oral contraceptive pills to S. mansoni infected mice results in significant reduction in tissue egg count with a high percentage of dead eggs as observed in the oogram study. There was statistically significant increase in all parameters of the hepatic functions except the prothrombin activity which showed significant decrease. Histopathological examination revealed less cellular granulomas with marked fibrosis, foci of hyperplastic changes in the liver cells and accentuation of cellular degenerative changes. On the subcellular level, there were marked proliferation and dilatation of rER and SER, evident increase of ribosomes, alteration in mitochondrial cristae with intra luminal inclusions and increase glycogen content of hepatocytes.