Tóm tắt:

Available anti-ulcer drugs unveil partial effectiveness and numerous adverse reactions. Plants offer an alternative strategy in the search for new drugs in the therapy and prevention of peptic ulceration. The present study investigated the possible protective effect of the herbal formulation Vien Khoi Tim (VKT) on indomethacin-induced gastric mucosal damage in rats. VKT was tested at two doses (1.44 & 0.48 capsules/kg/d po) ten days before the indomethacin single-dose challenge (40 mg/kg po). Animals were sacrificed six hours after indomethacin administration, and gastric tissues were collected for gross observation and histopathological analyses. The results revealed that the administration of indomethacin caused evident gastric mucosal damage with morphological and histological manifestations. VKT pretreatment tended to avert the rise in lesion numbers, reduce the ulcer index, and improve the severity of bleeding streaks and epithelial sloughing in gastric mucosa on the macroscopic examination compared to the model group. It is worth noting that no ulcerative lesions were observed in the gastric tissues of rats receiving VKT upon microscopic examination.