Seminiferous Tubules Areas in an Experimental Model of Intoxication

Abstract

Medicina Coimbra, Rua Larga, Coimbra, 3004-504 Coimbra, Portugal Chronic exposure to inhalation anaesthetics, is supposed to be a cause of decrease sperm concentration and motility. In this study is performed the experimental intoxication with an inhalation anaesthetic and evaluated the areas of the seminiferous tubules. Two groups of 16 male Wistar rats 8 weeks old were used in this study. The control group was maintained in the standard condition with no experimental protocol and sacrificed on the ninth day. The animals of the test group were submitted to the exposition of 8% sevofluran 4l/min of O2 at 100%, 20 minutes a day for 8 days. They were sacrificed one day after the last intoxication period. The testis were removed, fixed, neutral buffered formaldehyde and processed for histology. The slides were stained by Haematoxylin and Eosin and observed under the light microscope. From each slide were done 4 photos and evaluated the area of the seminiferous tubules with a near circular profile, using software for morphometry (Sigma Scan Pro 5.0). In each group the average area of seminiferous tubules were evaluated. Taking these values in control group, for each mouse, we can group them in classes: 25% are small, 50% are medium and 25% are large. If average area was smaller than 64 651,18 px we called them “very small seminiferous tubules” and when is more than 94 199,12 px we called them “very large”. In the test group we observed 18,75% of the cases with very small seminiferous tubules, 12,5% where they were small, 56,25% where they were medium and 12,5% where they were large. These results indicate that heavy intoxication with inhalator anaesthetics like sevofluran causes some reduction of seminiferous tubules areas, suggesting that with chronic exposure they can cause harmful alterations of testis function.