Histologic effects of Amygdalin on the mouse liver

There are many controversial reports about the toxic effects of Amygdalin as an anticancer drug. The aim of the present study was to investigate the histological effects of Amygdalin on the mouse liver. Thirty two adult male mice were selected and divided into 4 equal groups control, 10 mg/kg Amygdalin group, 25 mg/kg Amygdalin group, and 50 mg/kg Amygdalin group; all Amygdalin groups injected intraperitoneally. The experimental groups were injected with the specified doses of Amygdalin for 30 days, while the control ones were injected with normal saline. Three days after the last injection, all animals were anaesthetized and their livers weighed. Then, microscopic slides from their livers were prepared. Their Kupffer, necrotic, and multinucleated hepatic cells were counted. The collected data was analyzed statistically using Kruskal-Wallis test and SPSS software (version 16). There was no significant changes in the number of necrotic cells and mean weight of the liver in the study groups while the number of kupffer cells in Amygdalin 25 and 50 mg/kg groups significantly increased compared to Amygdalin 10 and the control (P=0.001).Moreover, mean number of multinucleated cells in Amygdalin 50 showed a statistically significant difference compared to the control (P=0.04). The present study showed that Amygdalin injection can dose-dependently cause an increase in the number of kupffer and multinucleated hepatic cells in the mouse.