Clinical study on treatment of hepatic damage resulting from coal-burning arsenism with Ginkgo leaf and its mechanism

Objective To clinically study the effect of Ginkgo leaf on hepatic damage resulting from coal- burning arsenism and its mechanism. Methods Sixty-five patients with coal- burning arsenism were randomly divided into two groups:experimental group and control group. Other thirty healthy people were enrolled into normal group. The experimental group (n = 34) was treated with Ginkgo leaf, the control group(n = 31) was given comfort tablet for three months. Serum platelet activating factor(PAF),TNFα,four markers for hepatic fibrosis, MDA?SOD?GSH-Px and histopathology of liver before and after treatment were observed. Results The markedly effective rate and the total effective rate in the experimental group were 44.8% and 77.7% respectively, while in the control group the corresponding rates 16.8% and 42.7%. Comparison between the two groups showed significant difference(P 0.01). Serum levels of PAF, TNF, MDA and four hepatic fibrosis markers were lowered significantly in the experimental group after treatment (P 0.01 or P 0.05). Serum levels of SOD and GSH-Px increased significantly after treatment in the treated group (P 0.01 or P 0.05). The pathological examination of liver showed inflammation and fibrosis were alleviated after treatment in the treated group(P 0.01), however, there were no significances compared with the corresponding parameter in the control group after treatment(P 0.05). Conclusions Ginkgo leaf tablet significantly ameliorate chronic hepatic damage resulting from coal-burning arsenism. The mechanism may be related to that Gingko leaf is a strong PAF antagonist :on one hand it can block the concatenation among cytokines; on the other hand it has anti-lipid peroxidation effect, thus inhibiting oxygen free radicals to damage hepatic cells.