Nevirapine Causes Histopathological Changes in the Hippocampus of Wistar rats

Nevirapine is one of the components of Duovir-NTM used for the management of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection in sub-Saharan Africa. The objective of this research study was to investigate the potential harmful effects of this drug on the histology of the hippocampus of Wistar rats. Twenty male Wistar rats were used for this study. The rats were divided into 2 groups of 10 rats each. Group A served as the control, while group B were treated with 2.86 mg/kg of nevirapine twice daily for 30 days. The rats were sacrificed using chloroform inhalation method. Their hippocampus was harvested, processed and stained using the Haematoxylin and Eosin, paraffin impregnated Glial Fibrilar Acidic Protein (GFAP) and Neurofillament (NF) immunochemistry methods. Stained slides were viewed under a light microscope. Results showed that the hippocampus of Groups B animals were-affected with moderate to severe distortion of the Pyramidal and neuronal cells, when compared with the control group A. GFAP and NF test showed increased expressions in the test group B than the controls. The drug nevirapine may be harmful to the hippocampus and should be taken with caution.

Key Words: Histological, nevirapine, hippocampus, Human Immunodeficiency Virus