Abortifacient effect of Prangos ferulacia on pregnant rats.
OBJECTIVE
Prangos ferulacea grows in southern Iran and used in Iranian herbal medicine for gastrointestinal disorders, but it seems it has an abortifacient effect on pregnant women. To verify its potential as an abortifacient agent, we administered the leaves of this plant to pregnant rats.


METHODS
Hydroalcoholic and aqueous extract of the leaves was administered orally at different doses to 60 rats on the first 18 days of pregnancy. Group 1 (G1) was considered as control group and was given only water. Groups 2-5 (G2-G5) received 25, 50, 100 mg/g per day and Groups 6-8 (G6-G8) received 300, 500 and 1000 mg/g per day, respectively. On Day 18 of pregnancy, they were killed and laparotomized. The uterine horns of each group were opened to see whether they contained any live and degenerated/dead fetuses. We used Student's t-test to analyze the data (p < or = .05 was considered significant).


RESULTS
Of the total 504 fetuses in the studied groups, 13 fetuses (2.57%) were aborted. The abortion rate in the control group was 2 (1.94%) of 103 fetuses; the abortion rate was higher in the treated groups but not statistically significant. There was no relationship between the dose and type of extract and abortion rate in all studied groups.


CONCLUSIONS
This study shows that the aqueous or hydroalcoholic extract of P. ferulacea is ineffective on the rate of abortion of pregnant rats. Future studies should be performed with higher doses to test the efficacy of this agent on other animals.
Kazerooni
Talieh
T
Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, P.O. Box 71345-1111, Shiraz 71345, Iran. kazeront@yahoo.com
Mousavizadeh
Kazem
K
Abdollahee
Alireza
A
Sarkarian
Mohsen
M
Sattar
Alireza
A
D000019:Abortifacient Agents / Q000032:analysis*; D000818:Animals; D005260:Female; D007492:Iran; D018515:Plant Leaves / Q000737:chemistry; D010946:Plants, Medicinal / Q000737:chemistry*; D011247:Pregnancy; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D015430:Weight Gain
D000019:Abortifacient Agents