The effect of pentoxifylline in improvement of spermatogenesis and apoptosis reduction in testicular damage induced by torsion in an animal model

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Department of Anatomy, School of Medicine, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran

2 Department of Anatomy, Faculty of Basic Medical Sciences, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Sagamu, Ogun State, Nigeria

3 Department of Anatomy, School of Medicine, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Background and Objective: Torsion leads to the formation of free radicals and eventually apoptosis, which plays an important role in the pathophysiology of testicular damage. Recent reports have focused on the role of pentoxifylline (PTX) against free radicals. Therefore, in this study, we investigated the effect of pentoxifylline on testicular injury due to torsion.
Materials and Methods: 20 male mice (6 weeks) were divided into 4 groups. Control group (Sham torsion operation), T1 (torsion with single-dose of 100 mg/kg of pentoxifylline, T2 (torsion with 25 mg/kg/d for 2 weeks) and T/D (Torsion-Detorsion). Animals in groups T1, T2 and T/D were subjected to 720° rotation of the left testicular spermatic cord clockwise for 2 hours followed by 30 minutes of detorsion. After detour, the drug was administered intraperitoneally. The left testicles of all animals were removed on day 35 after torsion for histopathological and biochemical evaluation. Statistical analysis was done by SPSS software using Tukey's test.
Results: Micromorphological analysis of testicular seminiferous tubules showed that there was a significant increase in mean tubular diameter, Johnson scores and number of germ cells in T1 group as compared to T2 and T/D (P< 0.05). However, no significant difference was observed in the number of Sertoli, Leydig and Myoid cells in all groups (P<0.05). Analysis of oxidative stress indices showed that pentoxifylline increased the level of SOD, catalase, mRNA expression of Akt and pi3k genes (P < 0.05) and reduced the amount of MDA and caspase-3 levels in T1 and T2 as compared with T/D (P ≤ 0.05).
Conclusion: Pentoxifylline can be used as a supplementary drug after surgery to treat torsion. However, further studies are needed to evaluate the effects of pentoxifylline in this area.

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Main Subjects


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