Table 3. Effect of Growth hormone (1mg/kg s.c.; once daily for 1 wk) on different classes of ovarian follicles and the mean diameter of antral follicles in rats subjected to single dose whole-body irradiation (3.2 Gy).

Treated groups	Primordial	Pre-antral	Antral	Atretic	The mean diameter of Antral follicles (μm)
Control	26.33 ± 3.48	16.33 ± 3.18	8 ± 0.577	5.60 ± 1.20	272.89 ± 20.62
IR	4 ± 0.41 a	4.20 ± 0.71 a	2.33 ± 0.33 a	14.0 ± 0.91 a	182.02 ± 5.52 a
IR/GH	19.67 ± 2.90 a,b	15.00 ± 1.73 b	7.5 ± 0.64 b	3.40 ± 0.92 b	269.53 ±12.09 b
GH	20.66 ± 2.33 a,b	11.5 ± 1.55 b	7 ± 0.41 b	4.50 ± 0.95 b	267.39± 10.49 b

-Data expressed as Mean ± SEM of at least three rats.

-a, b: Significantly different from control, radiation group, respectively at p <0.05 using one-way ANOVA followed by Tukey–Kramer as a post-hoc test.