Elsevier

Fertility and Sterility

Volume 98, Issue 3, September 2012, Pages 626-631
Fertility and Sterility

Original article
A comparison of the effects of N-acetylcysteine and ethyl pyruvate on experimental testicular ischemia-reperfusion injury

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fertnstert.2012.05.034Get rights and content

Objective

To compare the effects of N-acetylcysteine (NAC) and ethyl pyruvate (EP) on experimental testicular ischemia-reperfusion (I/R) injury.

Design

Randomized, controlled, experimental study.

Setting

University hospital.

Animal(s)

Twenty-four mature male Wistar rats.

Intervention(s)

Rats were divided into four groups: control group, torsion-detorsion (T/D) group, EP group, and NAC group. In the pretreatment of the NAC and EP groups, 20 mg/kg NAC and 50 mg/kg EP were given intraperitoneally (IP) 30 minutes before detorsion.

Main Outcome Measure(s)

Serum ischemia-modified albumin (IMA), tissue and serum malondialdehyde, and myeloperoxidase activity levels and histopathological damage scores were then compared.

Result(s)

Ethyl pyruvate and N-acetylcysteine exhibited a protective effect against I/R injury. Of the biochemical parameters evaluated as a result of testicular I/R, only IMA levels were significantly elevated. There was a strong and significant correlation between serum IMA levels and histopathological injury scores, and the increase in serum IMA level exhibited a strong parallel with the increase in histopathological injury. In the EP group, although the histopathological injury score was similar to that of the control group, serum IMA levels were significantly elevated.

Conclusion(s)

Both NAC and EP, the effects of which on I/R injury are evaluated in the present study, reduce such injury in testicular torsion-detorsion. Comparing their effects on IMA levels, NAC may be regarded as a relatively more effective treatment than EP.

Section snippets

Study Design

This was a randomized, controlled, nonblinded interventional animal study, the protocol for which was approved by the Karadeniz Technical University Animal Care and Ethics Committee.

Setting and Selection of Subjects

Twenty-four mature male Wistar rats (10 weeks old, weighing 240–280 g) were used. The animals were kept in steel cages until the day of the study, at a room temperature of 22°C and were given water and standard rat chow. Only water was provided for the last 12 hours before the study.

Intervention

The 24 rats were randomized into

Results

Twenty-four rats were included in the study. One rat from the control group died during the monitoring period.

According to our results, the median IMA levels were measured as 0.793, 0.864, 0.874, and 0.775 absorbance units and the median histopathological score were obtained as 9.0, 7.3, 9.3, and 9.4 point in the control, T/D, NAC, and EP groups, respectively. Levels of serum IMA, MDA, MPO, and tissue testicular MPO and MDA levels are summarized in Table 1.

On the basis of our results, distinct

Discussion

The major purposes of our study were to investigate whether NAC and EP reverse I/R injuries after testicular T/D and to compare them using histopathological and new biochemical techniques. According to our results, significant I/R-associated histopathological injury developed when T/D was administered, and EP and NAC exhibited a protective effect against that injury. Because this suggested that increased IMA levels might be the biochemical parameter that best reflects I/R injury in the testes,

Acknowledgment

The authors thank Omer Kutlu, M.D., Ahmet Alver, Ph.D., and Abdulkadir Gunduz, M.D., for their comments.

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    S.T. has nothing to disclose. A.M. has nothing to disclose. E.K. has nothing to disclose. Y.K. has nothing to disclose. A.K. has nothing to disclose. A.U. has nothing to disclose. E.Y. has nothing to disclose. S.T. has nothing to disclose.

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