Antischistosomal effects of praziquantel, its alkaline hydrolysis and sun decomposed products on experimentally S. mansoni infected albino mice. (A) Efficacy assessment based on clinicopathological findings.

The antischistosomal activity of praziquantel (PZQ), its alkaline hydrolysis product (HP) and its sun-decomposed (SD) products was investigated in S. mansoni experimentally infected mice. The evaluation was made depending on the degree of clinico-pathological changes. The results obtained revealed that, PZQ, HP and the SD have induced partial suppression of worm fecundity as judged by the significant reduction in eggs per gram of faeces in comparison with the infected untreated control. The effect on tissue egg deposition in the treated groups was comparable to the infection of untrea ted control. Worm recovery showed large reduction in the number of worms for SD (47.6%) and HP (28.6%) compared to PZQ (16.6%) treated groups. So, the former two compounds have the superior antischistosomal activities. Glutamate pyruvate transominase (GPT) and glutamate oxaloacetate transaminase (GOT) concentrations were measured. The GOT values for all treated groups were significantly higher than those for the healthy control group (p=0.01). The SD group enzyme concentration was even higher than the infected untreated control. The GPT values of all groups were greater than the uninfected control and the difference was significant for the infected untreated, PZQ and the SD treated groups (p=0.05).