BACKGROUND: Paraquat(PQ) is used widely all over the world for its excellent effect as a herbicide. But its mortality rate is known to be very high, because there is no effective therapeutic modality. Recently, surprising improvement in survival rate was reported using the cyclophosphamide & methylprednisolone pulse therapy in paraquat poisoning. However, this report was not based upon animal study, we designed this experiment to confirm the therapeutic effect. METHODS: Under the halothane anesthesia, paraquat dichloride 40 mg/kg was injected intraperitoneally to 18 Sprague-Dawley rats. Two hours later, cyclophsphamide 40 mg/kg IP and methylprednisolone 62.5 mg/kg IM were injected in the treatment group(n=9). After 24 hours, we examined serum creatinine levels and pathologic findings of lung stained with hematoxylin-eosin and Masson's trichrome. And 72 hour mortality was compared between 2 groups(5 rats respectively). RESULTS: There were no statistical differences between the treatment group and control group in serum creatinine level, degree of lung injury, and survival rates. CONCLUSION: Cyclophosphamide and high dose methylprednisolone combination therapy did not decrease pulmonary toxicity and mortality of paraquat poisoned rats. Further animal studies using various doses and administrative methods of above medications are necessary to demonstrate their effects.
Anesthesia ; Animals ; Creatinine ; Cyclophosphamide* ; Halothane ; Lung ; Lung Injury ; Methylprednisolone* ; Mortality ; Paraquat* ; Poisoning ; Rats* ; Rats, Sprague-Dawley ; Survival Rate

Antibiotic resistance in Salmonella enteritidis and S. typhimurium, one of most frequent etiologic pathogens of food-borne bacterial gastroenteritidis in humans, is a serious health problem worldwide. Fifteen and 22 each of S. enteritidis and S. typhimurium were isolated from animals from 1983 to 1999 in Korea and tested for their antibiotic resistance patterns and phage types. S. enteritides isolates were highly resistant to sulfonamides (86.7%) and four of them (26.6%) showed multiple antibiotic resistance. The most frequent phage type (PT) of S. enteritids was PT1 (33.3%) even though none of them had multiple antibiotic resistance. S. typhimurium isolates were highly resistant to streptomycin, sulfonamides, and tetracycline, 100%, 95.5%, and 86.4% respectively. The incidence of multiple antibiotic resistance of S. typhimurium isolates was extremely high (100%) comparing to S. enteritidis isolates (26.7%). Two of the five ACSSuT type S. typhimurium isolates, resistant to ampicillin, chloramphenicol, streptomycin, sulfonamides, and tetracycline, were phage type DT104. All S. typhimurium isolates were sensitive to florfenicol. For the rapid detection of multiple antibiotic resistant S. enteritidis and S. typhimurium isolates, particularly ACSSuT type S. typhimurium DT104, antibiotic resistance genes, cmlA/tetR, PSE-1, and TEM, and Salmonella spp. Specific gene, SipB/C, were amplified using four pairs of primers in hot-started multiplex polymerase chain reaction. Two Korean isolates of S. typhimurium DT104 showed TEM amplicons instead of PSE-1 for the ampicillin resistance. The multiplex PCR used in this study was useful in rapid detection of ACSSuT type S. typhimurium and identification of b-lactamase gene distribution among Salmonella isolates.
Animals ; Anti-Bacterial Agents/*pharmacology ; Bacteriophage Typing ; Base Sequence ; Drug Resistance, Bacterial/genetics ; Drug Resistance, Multiple, Bacterial/genetics ; Gene Amplification ; Humans ; Microbial Sensitivity Tests/veterinary ; Phenotype ; Polymerase Chain Reaction/veterinary ; Salmonella Infections, Animal/drug therapy/*microbiology ; Salmonella enteritidis/classification/*drug effects/genetics ; Salmonella typhimurium/classification/*drug effects/genetics