Background: Standard therapies for toxoplasmosis have serious adverse effects and can’t eliminate the cyst stage of chronic infection. Highly effective medications with few adverse effects are required. This work aimed to determine the efficacy of nitrofurantoin in the treatment of chronic toxoplasmosis as a means of overwhelming the limitations of other standard medications.
Methods: A total of 42 laboratory-bred Swiss female albino mice were included. Six mice were left in the non-infected, non-treated group (G 1). The rest (12mice/ each group) were experimentally infected orally with the T. gondii strain (ME49). Six weeks post-infection the experimental mice were divided into four groups.Group1:uninfected, untreated; Group2:infected, untreated mice (infected control); Group3:infected treated mice with nitrofurantoin for two weeks and Group 4: infected mice treated with a combination of nitrofurantoin and spiramycin for two weeks. Sixty days after infection, all mice were slaughtered. Parasitological (brain cyst count) and histological (using hematoxylin and eosin) measures were used to assess the therapeutic impact of nitrofurantoin in chronically infected mice (H & E). Results: High significant reduction of mean brain cyst count was observed in the nitrofurantoin monotherapy group in comparison with the infected
control group. The combination-treated group had the best treatment efficacy, with the highest rates of brain cyst decrease. Histopathological studies of the brain tissues showed an obvious correlation with the results of the brain cyst counts.
Conclusions: Nitrofurantoin is a possible anti-T.gondii option for
clinical usage in chronic toxoplasmosis, as it enhances the antitoxoplasmic effect of standard toxoplasmosis treatment.