The protective effect of ulinastatin on newborn rats with hypoxic-ischemic brain damage

Objective To study the effect of Ulinastatin on newborn rats with hypoxic-ischemic brain damage(HIBD) Methods Sixty newborn Wistar rats aged 7 days old were selected to establish HIBD model. In therapeutic group. Ulinastatin was injected peritoneally at instantly, 8 hours and 16 hours after procedures, then the rats were sacrificed 24 hours after hypoxic and ischemic insults. Their brain tissues were weighted and fixed, the slices were stained by HE and TUNEL. The number of cells with apoptosis was counted. The degeneration, necrosis and hyperplasia of gliocytes in cerebral cortex cells were measured with quantitative pathological score. The cells of hippocampus were examined by electron-microscopy. The results were compared among HIBD model group, sham operation group, control group and three Ulinastatin treated groups. Results The values of brain weight increased, the weight differences of left and right brain, the number of apoptotic cells and quantitative pathological score of brain tissue in therapeutic group were much lower than that of HIBD group(P0.01). There were no significant differences of above values among all three therapeutic groups (P0.05). Conclusions Ulinastatin treatment can decrease cerebral cellular edema, degeneration, necrosis and apoptosis after hypoxic-ischemic insult, and it provides protective effect on brain tissues.