Toxicology letters
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Comparative Study
Inhibitory effect of cold stress against acetaminophen-induced hepatic injury in B6C3F1 and ICR mice.
The effect of cold stress (at 0 +/- 1 degree C for 3 h) on acetaminophen-induced hepatic injury was investigated in B6C3F1 and ICR mice. When acetaminophen (250 mg/kg) was injected intraperitoneally in B6C3F1 mice, the plasma GPT activity was significantly increased by 93 or 107-fold at 6 h or 24 h after the drug injection. ⋯ The increased plasma GPT activity elicited a significant inhibition of 35% and 36%, respectively, by the exposure to cold stress. These results suggest that acetaminophen-induced hepatic injury may be blocked by physical stress in mice.
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Comparative Study
A comparison of the efficacy of HI6 and 2-PAM against soman, tabun, sarin, and VX in the rabbit.
This study compared the efficacy of HI6 and 2-PAM against nerve agent (soman, tabun, sarin, and VX)-induced lethality in the atropinesterase-free rabbits pretreated with vehicle (controls) or pyridostigmine. Treatment was administered at signs or 2 min after agent challenge and consisted of oxime (100 mumol/kg) + atropine (13 mg/kg) (alone or together with diazepam). Twenty-four-h LD50 values were calculated for soman- and tabun-intoxicated animals, whereas 24-h survival was noted in animals given 10 LD50s of sarin or VX. ⋯ In pyridostigmine-pretreated animals exposed to tabun, efficacy was increased more than 3-fold when compare to tabun-challenged animals treated with atropine + HI6 alone. Both oximes were highly effective against sarin and VX. These findings suggest that HI6 could replace 2-PAM as therapy for nerve agent poisoning, because it is superior to 2-PAM against soman, and when used in pyridostigmine-pretreated animals, it affords excellent protection against all four nerve agents when used in combination with atropine (alone or together with diazepam) therapy.
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Fire victims are exposed to the triple threat of thermal injury (skin and lungs), smoke toxicity (toxic or irritant gases and soots) and even trauma whose occurrences are somewhat independent one from the other but whose addition does sharply increase the probability of death of the victims. As the different victims of the same fire may not suffer from the same injuries, this triple threat must be looked for in each fire victim.
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The present work investigated the effect of preperfusion of ascending concentrations of lead acetate (LA) (10(-9), 10(-7) and 10(-5) M) on digoxin (DGN) cardiotoxicity in isolated frog heart, in order to look for any consequent variations in its lead-induced potentiation. The DGN perfusion time(s) and DGN exposure (micrograms DGN/10 mg heart weight) for, and myocardial DGN level (ng DGN/g wet tissue) at, cardiac arrest were the parameters evaluated so as to assess cardiotoxicity. Both sodium acetate and LA (10(-7) M) preperfusion led to a diminution in cardiac rate at 10 min of DGN perfusion without altering the contractility compared to the DGN alone group. ⋯ On the other hand, in the experimental group that received preperfusion of 10(-9) M LA, the DGN exposure for cardiac arrest was not significantly different from that of the control, whereas in the 10(-7) and 10(-5) M groups, it was significantly lower (P < 0.05). In the experimental group that received preperfusion of 10(-7) M LA, the significant reduction in DGN perfusion time and DGN exposure was well corroborated by a diminution in the myocardial DGN level (4.01 +/- 0.17 ng/g wet tissue in comparison with the control value of 5.72 +/- 0.4 ng/g wet tissue, P < 0.05) at cardiac arrest. Taken together, these data reveal that with the preperfusion of LA in ascending concentrations, there is a relative increase in LA-induced potentiation of DGN cardiotoxicity.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
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Personal air exposures and exhaled breath concentrations of 20 volatile organic compounds were measured for 198 smokers and 322 non-smokers in 5 U. S. cities (1980-84). ⋯ Homes with smokers had higher indoor air concentrations of the same compounds than homes without smokers during fall and winter. Passive smokers exposed at work had significantly higher levels of benzene and other aromatics in their breath than unexposed non-smokers.