Cystone, a well-known herbal formulation improves renal function in rats with acute renal failure (ARF) induced by Glycerol intoxication

The present study was aimed to evaluate the beneficial effect of Cystone syrup in an experimental model of glycerol-induced acute renal failure (ARF) in rats. Biochemical parameters, kidney weight and histopathological evaluation were performed to conclude the beneficial effect of Cystone syrup. Administration of single dose of 50% v/v glycerol (8ml/kg.i.m) caused severe renal dysfunction associated with significant increase in markers of renal function such as serum urea (p<0.01), creatinine (p<0.01), blood urea nitrogen (BUN) (p<0.01), decrease in the Creatinine clearance (Ccr) (p<0.01) and increase in kidney weight to body weight ratio (p<0.01) compared to control group. These changes were in accordance with the histopathological findings showing severe tubular necrosis, degeneration and moderate luminal cast formation. In contrast, pre-treatment with Cystone (5 ml/kg, p.o) for seven days, alleviated the glycerol induced renal dysfunction significantly by maintaining serum urea (p<0.01), creatinine (p<0.05), BUN (p<0.01) and kidney weight to body weight ratio (p<0.05) near to normal range, also improved the creatinine clearance (p<0.05) compared to untreated positive control. In addition, histopathology of Cystone (5 ml/kg, p.o) treated group showed mild to moderate tubular necrosis and degeneration. Thus, the findings of the present study demonstrates the usefulness of Cystone syrup in reversing the biochemical/ structural markers of renal dysfunction observed in experimental model of renal failure in rats.