The Histomorphological Studies of Viscera in Mice Foetal Alcohol Syndrome

Abstract

This work studied the effect of prenatal alcohol exposure on histomorphology of the heart, spleen and lungs of mice pups. Twenty-two 8-week old female inbred albino mice were divided into two groups of 11 each. Group 1 was given 10% ethanol (v/v) in water for two weeks, then increased to 20% (v/v) for another three weeks. Group 2, which served as control received ordinary water throughout the period of the experiment. The animals in both groups were randomly mated overnight. On diagnosis of pregnancy, the ethanol was increased to 30% (v/v) for group 1 and maintained on this until birth when it was replaced with water. Both groups were fed commercial diet ad libitum. At the 4^th day of age, the pups were sacrificed and the heart, spleen and lungs carefully dissected out, histosections prepared and stained with H & E. The histomorphological changes observed in the alcohol exposed pups included oedema of interaveolar sepatae, oedema and fatty degeneration of myocardiac fibers. Their spleen was reactive and contained more lymphoblasts and lymphocytes while that of control contained more red blood cells.