الفهرس 
Introduction & Aim of WorkOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
 |  | from | 70 |  |  |
| | | from | 70 | | |
Abstract
The present work was carried out to evaluate the effect of Ginger drug or ginger plant, a natural product extracted against Giardia lamblia in infected hamsters, and to reduce the dose of metronidazole, in order to avoid the side effects of a large dose used for a long duration, by combining metronidazole together with Ginger drug or ginger plant extract in treatment of giardiasis.
The study was conducted on seventy laboratory bred Syrian hamsters with a weight range of 100-110 gm. The animals were provided by the Schistosome Biological Supply Program (SBSP) in Theodor Bilharz Research Institute (TBRI) and were divided into 7 groups.
Of these 70 hamsters, ten hamsters served as normal control group and another ten hamsters served as infected control. The remaining fifty hamsters were orally infected with 10,000 Giardia lamblia cysts/hamster and were divided into 5 groups of 10 hamsters each: metronidazole treated group; Ginger drug treated group; Ginger plant extract treated group; group received combined treatment of a half dose of metronidazole with ginger plant extract and group received combined treatment of a half dose of metronidazole with ginger drug.
Three weeks after infection, drugs were given to hamsters for 7 days. Two weeks later, stool analysis was performed and the number of Giardia cysts/gm stool was counted followed by sacrification of all hamsters. There was a highly significant difference between control and all treated groups. The highest percentage of cysts reduction was in the group of hamsters receiving combined treatment ginger drug with metronidazole (95.31%) in a half dose followed by metronidazole treated group (91.88%) and then ginger drug treated group (55.28%) and then ginger plant extract (39.49%).
The effect of the different drug regimens on the trophozoites of Giardia in the small intestine of sacrified hamsters was also studied. Significant cure rate and reduction of trophozoites count (94.60%) was noted in the group which received combined treatment of a half dose of metronidazole with ginger drug. On the other hand, when metronidazole and ginger drug or ginger plant extract when given alone, reduction rates of 87.06% and 46.60% and 37.77% were observed respectively.
Assessment of cure rates was also performed by histopathological examination of the small intestine of sacrified hamsters. Histopathological examination revealed complete healing of intestinal mucosa after the combined treatment, while partial healing of the lining epithelium of the intestine was noticed after metronidazole or Ginger drug or ginger plant extract treatment when given alone.