Effect of pentoxifylline on hepatocyte's damages due to administration of ecstasy in Wistar rat

Ecstasy is a psychoactive, hallucinogen drug and a member of amphetamines family and is used commonly worldwide. Ecstasy overdose leads to restlessness, anxiety, hallucination, cardiovascular disorders and liver toxicity. Recently, the use of vasodilators, such as pentoxifylline (PTX), is one of the new strategies for protection against liver lesions caused by some substances such as alcohol consumption. There are few studies about the protective effect of pentoxifylline on liver damages due to MDMA long administration. Therefore, a comprehensive study on the protective effect of pentoxifylline on liver lesions caused by prolonged use of ecstasy seems to be necessary. This experimental study was performed on five groups: control, Ecstasy (7.5 mg/kg), Experimental 1 (100 mg/kg PTX simultaneously with the last dose of Ecstasy), experimental 2 (100 mg/kg PTX a week before Ecstasy injection), and vehicle (normal saline) groups (n=25). After two weeks, animals were killed and their livers were prepared for histological studies (H&E method) and TUNEL technique for investigating of apoptotic bodies. The apoptotic bodies and hepatocytes lesions in experimental group 1 were lower than the other groupsm except control. It seems that the use of pentoxifylline after consumption of pure ecstasy can decrease tissue damage and prevent the induction of apoptosis in rat liver.