Abstract
Zidovudine is a drugs used in the management of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) infection in sub-Saharan Africa in combination with other drugs. The objective of this research was to investigate the potential harmful effects of this drug on the histology of the cerebellum of Wistar rats. Twenty male Wistar rats were used for this study. The rats were divided into 2 groups of 10 rats each. Group A served as the control and was administered with 1 ml of distill water, while group B was administered with 8.57mg/kg of zidovudine daily for 30 days, after which the rats where sacrificed and each cerebellum was harvested, processed and stained using haematoxylin and Eosin (H/E), silver impregnation method. Paraffin impregnated Glial Fibrilar Acidic Protein (GFAP), Neuron Specific Enolase (NSE) and Neurofilament (NF) immunochemistry methods. Stained slides were viewed using light microscope. Results showed that, the cerebellum of Groups B animals were affected with moderate to severe shrinking and distortion of the Purkinje cells and granular cells, when compared with the control. Group B animals, also showed more expression of GFAP, NSE and NF staining in their cerebellum than the control. This suggests that zidovudine is harmful to the cerebellum and should be taken with caution
Highlights
Zidovudine (ZDV) is a nucleoside analog reversetranscriptase inhibitor (NRTI), a type of antiretroviral drug used for the treatment of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)/AIDS infection
There are anecdotal reports of psychiatric symptoms, including mania and depression, in patients treated with zidovudine
There are anecdotal reports of psychiatric symptoms, including mania and depression, in patients treated with zidovudine, even in patients with no previous psychiatric history [8]
Summary
Zidovudine (ZDV) is a nucleoside analog reversetranscriptase inhibitor (NRTI), a type of antiretroviral drug used for the treatment of HIV/AIDS infection. It is a therapeutic analog of thymidine. ZDV was the first U.S government approved treatment for HIV therapy, prescribed under the names RETROVIR and RETROVIS. When used as monotherapy in HIV-infected patients, ZDV safely slows HIV replication in patients, but generally does not stop it entirely [4]. The effectiveness of ZDV in the treatment of HIV infection is due to its selective affinity for HIV reverse transcriptase as opposed to human DNA polymerases [5, 6]
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