Table 4.
Incidence and severity of histopathological lesions in the testes, epididymis and prostate glands of BOL-treated groups; B = 4.4 mg/kg bwt BOL treated, C = 8.8 mg/kg bwt BOL treated
| Incidence* and Severity† of Histopathological Lesions | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Group B | Group C | |||||||
| Organ/Lesion | Absent (−) | Mild (+) | Moderate (++) | Severe (+++) | Absent (−) | Mild (+) | Moderate (++) | Severe (+++) |
| Testes | ||||||||
| Small disorganized tubules with thickened irregular basement membrane | 1 | 3 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 8 |
| Vacuolation of germ cells and Sertoli cells | 3 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 6 |
| Sloughing germ cells | 0 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 6 |
| Giant cell formations | 3 | 1 | 6 | 0 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 0 |
| Reduced spermatogenesis | 0 | 1 | 5 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 9 |
| Coagulative necrosis of tubules | 6 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 7 | 0 | 0 |
| Interstitial fibrosis | 8 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 6 |
| Epididymis | ||||||||
| Sloughing germ cells | 0 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 5 |
| Low sperm density | 0 | 1 | 5 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 9 |
| Prostate | ||||||||
| Tubular dilatation | 8 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 6 | 0 | 4 | 0 |
*
Number of rabbits with lesions per total examined (10 rabbits per group).
†
Severity of lesions was graded by estimating the percentage area affected in the entire section. Lesion scoring: (−) absence of the lesion = 0%, (+) mild = 5–25%, (++) moderate = 26–50% and (+++) severe ≥50% of the examined tissue sections.