The potent effect of silymarin combination with Praziquantel or mirazid for Schistosoma mansoni treatment in infected male swiss albino mice

Abstract

Schistosomiasis is a tropically wide spread disease, it causes millions of infections in Africa, Asia and Latin America besides to animal husbandry economy threats (El-Khadragy et al., 2019). Three main different species of Schistosoma can infect human S. mansoni, S. hematobium and S. japonicum. Cercariae are the infectious phase of Schistosoma that developed in fresh water snails which carrying the sporocytes (Zhao et al., 2019). Cercariae penetrate the skin and reach the portal vein via the circulation accompanied by worm eggs arrival to the liver resulted in granulomatous reactions. It is followed by depositions of collagen I, II and III that termed fibrosis, due to activation of hepatic stellate cells. Fibrosis may be reversible whereas cirrhosis is an irreversible process, so it is very important to prevent the development of fibrosis to cirrhosis (El-Hawary et al., 2018). Praziquantel (PZQ) is a specific anti-schistosomal drug used for long time to eliminate the schistosoma worm burdens, but many studies reported its weak effect on immature stages of the parasite (El-Lakkany et al., 2012; Dkhil et al., 2014). On the other hand, PZQ exhibited a limited effect on liver fibrosis have developed due to ova depositions, granulomas formation and liver damage (Almeer et al., 2018). Mirazid is an anti-schistosomal drug which is newer than PZQ. It was introduced in the markets since 2001. It is extracted from myrrh which is an oleo-gum resin that collected from Commpiphora moloml trees (El-Malky et al., 2013). Mirazid has been reported as anti-protozoa drug