Background: Chemotherapy is one of the major means for control of malignancies, with cisplatin (CDDP) as one of the main agents, widely used for the treatment of various malignant solid tumors. However, prevention of hepatotoxicity from cisplatin is one of the urgent issues in cancer chemotherapy. In this study, we aimed to investigate the effects of pu-erh tea on hepatotoxicity through body weight and tissue antioxidant parameters like, liver coefficient, serum alanine aminotransferase (ALT), serum aspartate aminotransferase (AST), superoxide dismutase (SOD), glutathione peroxidase (GSH-PX), malondialdehyde(MDA) and glutathione (GSH) levels, and light microscopic evaluation by histological findings.
Materials and methods: The rats were randomly divided into five groups: Control (n=10), cisplatin (3 mg/kg p.i., n=10), cisplatin+pu-erh (0.32 g/kg/day i.g., n=10), cisplatin+pu-erh (0.8 g/kg/day i.g., n=10) and cisplatin+pu-erh (1.6 g/kg/day i.g., n=10). Pu-erh tea powder was administrated for 31 consecutive days. The rats were sacrificed at the end on the second day after a single dose of cisplatin treatment for measuring indices.
Results: Pu-erh tea powder exhibited a protective effect by decreasing MDA and GSH and increasing the SOD and GSH-PX levels and GSH-PX/MDA ratio in comparison with the control group. Besides, pu-erh tea was also able to alleviate the pathological damage to some extent.
Conclusion: Pu-erh tea powder is protective against cisplatin-induced liver oxidative damages, especially at the medium dosage (0.8 g/kg/d).