The Effect of Azathioprine on Anastomotic Healing: An Experimental Study in Rats

Abstract

Daily treatment for four weeks with high or low azathioprine doses has no inhibitory effect on colonic healing in rats.

Effect of corticosteroid dose and duration of administration on colonic anastomosis

“…24,28 The changes in hyroxyproline content reflect the changes in the amount of collagen. 6,29 In the present study, methylprednisolone, irrespective of the dose and the duration of administration, had a significant negative effect on the collagen synthesis in all of the experimental groups as seen from the hydroxyproline levels.…”

“…20,23,24 The best-known mechanical measurements are bursting pressure, bursting wall tension, and tensile strength. Unfortunately, none of these methods are ideal and only the bursting technique evenly distributes transmural pressure and this is considered to be the testing method which more closely approximates the clinical situation.…”

Effects of immunosuppressive therapy on wound healing

“…The breaking strength of the anastomosis was then determined. There was no significant differences in anastomotic breaking strength between the three groups (16). The strengths of this study are the inclusion of a control group and having a low‐dose and high‐dose treatment group to ascertain the effect of different doses on healing.…”

“…The strengths of this study are the inclusion of a control group and having a low-dose and high-dose treatment group to ascertain the effect of different doses on healing. In addition, the method for testing breaking strength is well described and has been shown to be superior to other methods for measuring anastomotic healing (16). No blinding was involved, so that the investigator performing the colonic anastomosis could potentially be aware of which group the rats came from.…”

Immunomodulators: Friends or Enemies in Surgery for Crohn’s Disease?

“…There were no other significant differences between the groups, including azathioprine compared to placebo. Stolzenburg et al, who tested the anastomotic healing in rats using breaking strength, used up to four times as high dose of azathioprine as in the previous study but without any adverse effect on the breaking strength 127 .…”