You have no items in your shopping cart.
ABSTRACT
Heavy metals are naturally occurring elements that are found throughout the earth’s crust. Most contamination of heavy metals and human exposure result from anthropogenic activities such as industrial production, domestic and agricultural use of metals and metal containing compounds. Lead and Cadmium are examples of these heavy metals. Both of these heavy metals are naturally distributed but industrial development has dramatically increased their concentration in the environment which increase the risk of human exposure. The effects of the co-exposure to these two heavy metals were investigated on histopathological status in the vital organ of the male Wistar rats. Fifteen (15) adult male Wistar rats weighing between 100-130g were used for this study. They were randomly assigned into 3 groups of (n=5) in each group. Group 1 served as the control group while groups 2 and 3 served as experimental groups. Group 1(Control Group) were allowed free access to pellets and distilled water ad libitum. Groups 2 and 3 were administered CdCl2 an Pb(C2H3O2)2 of 100ppm for 14 and 28 days respectively. After four weeks of administration all the animals in groups 1, 2 and 3 were sacrificed by cervical dislocation. Each animal was cut opened from the midline incision of the abdominal cavity to the thoracic cavity. Some vital tissues were harvested from each animal then weighed on a sensitive scale. These tissues include liver, kidney, spleen, stomach and testis. Each tissue sample was placed in a universal bottle with the mixture of formalin and Bouin’s fluid for 48 hours for histological analysis. The organs weight data are represented as mean standard error of mean (SEM), values obtained were examined using analysis of variance (ANOVA) and the tissues were subjected to histopathological examination. The result obtained showed that there was a significant increase in the weight of the liver, kidney, stomach, testis and spleen in the experimental groups compared to the control group. The histological analysis revealed vascular congestion and poor periglomerular morphology in the kidney, in the testis, most of the seminiferous tubules appeared normal but they are loosely disconnected and having sparing activities at the central lumen, the stomach mucosa area was seen to be heavily eroded, in the spleen there was congestion of the pericapsular environment and in the liver the result showed loss of portal arrangement and ductless bile. In conclusion, sub-acute co-exposure to lead acetate and cadmium chloride even at a low dosage of 100ppm caused some level of damages to the vital organs. Further studies should be conducted to ascertain to safe dosage as human exposure to these metals are somewhat inevitable.
