In order to investigate an effective therapy on paraquat poisoning, acute toxicity studies were performed using mice as experimental animals.
According to the mechanisms of paraquat toxicity, which is caused by superoxide radical and singlet oxygen geneation with subsequent initiation of membrane damaging process of ipid peroxidation ascorbic acid and superoxide dismutase (SOD) were injected intravenously to paraquat-poi-soned mice. The therapeutic effects of the two reagents against the paraquat toxicties were monitored using both mortality rates and boby weight changes of the mice for 10 days expeimental period.
No significant differences of the mortality rates were observed between the ascorbic acid injected group and the control group. On the contrary, the mortality rate of the paraquat poisoned mice treated with SOD was higher than that of the control group, suggesting the toxicities of H₂O₂ produced by SOD and Superoxide. This finding is to be taken consideration as a warning against a single use of SOD as a therapy for paraquat poisonig cases.