Serum level of artemisinin in broiler chickens following single and chronic oral administration

Objectives: Despite that preliminary studies have shown suitable anticoccidial effects of Artemisinin in broiler chickens but there were no studies about its pharmacokinetics, so this study was conducted to determine serum level of artemisinin in broiler chickens following single and chronic oral administration. 390 one-day Ross chickens were divided into two groups. In the first group, single oral doses of 0, 1, 5, 25, 125, 250, 500 1000 mg/kg artemisinin on day 44, and in the second group 0, 17, 34, 68 136 ppm of artemisinin were administered chronically during days 8 to 44 with feed. HPLC system was used to determine serum level of artemisinin. Data were analyzed using Linear mixed model (P 0.05). Results showed that serum levels of artemisinin in both groups were generally low and there were no significant differences neither between chronic and single dose administration groups nor between different doses in each group (p 0.05). The levels of artemisinin in the chickens received single doses were in the range of 25.3804 ± 0.1533 to 42.2793 ± 12.0474 ng/ml and 24.68774±0.1299 to 29.24717±1.7288 ng/ml for those received chronic doses. It can be concluded that serum level of artemisinin administered orally to the chickens as single or chronic doses is low which seems to be due to low oral absorption and metabolism induction and can be a key role for its high therapeutic index and good anticoccidial properties