Assessment of Hepatotoxic Effects of Quetiapıne at Repeated Doses in Rats

Abstract

Quetiapine is an atypical antipsychotic drug used for treatments of patients with schizophrenia. Although hepatotoxic effects related to quetiapine treatment were reported in a few studies, potential hepatotoxicity of this drug was not identified clearly. Therefore, it was aimed to evaluate possible hepatotoxic effects of quetiapine by oral administration of this drug at 10 and 20 mg/kg doses to rats for 30 days in our study. For this purpose, plasma aspartate aminotransferase, alanine aminotransferase, total bilirubin and direct bilirubin levels as markers of hepatotoxicity were determined and histopathological examination was performed in liver tissues. According to our results, serum aspartate aminotransferase and alanine aminotransferase levels were significantly increased in quetiapine-administered groups, whereas total and direct bilirubin levels were significantly increased in high dose group. Histopathological examination of liver tissue indicated that necrotic areas were observed in 10 mg/kg quetiapine-administered group whereas necrotic areas were present and sinusoidal dilatation was observed in 20 mg/kg quetiapine-administered group. According to these results, we concluded that quetiapine may induced hepatotoxic effects in rats, dose-dependently.