Evaluation of the effect of carbamazepine on gonadal development in female rats

Carbamazepine is one of the most effective medicines in treating ‎epilepsy; its use is associated with teratogenic effects during embryonic period. The aim of this ‎study was to evaluate the effect of carbamazepine during gonad development in female rats. In this experimental study, 60 female pregnant rats were divided into 2 classes (n=8). ‎Each class contains control, sham and treated rats with doses 10, 15, 30 mg/kg of ‎carbamazepine. All i.p injections were done during 14 - 18 GD (for fetal gonad development) ‎and days 0-10 after birth (for newborn gonad development). The newborns were allowed to ‎reach 7 weeks old. The right ovary was removed and histological staining (H & E) was ‎performed. Data comparison was done by one and two ANOVA followed by Tukey test. The results showed that carbamazepine causes decreasing in the number of primary ‎oocyte but increasing the number of secondary oocyte, graffian follicles and corpus luteum. In ‎comparison to the fetal and newborn treated rats, it showed that the number of primary oocyte ‎in fetal treated group with 30 mg/kg of carbamazepine has a significant increase (p<0.001). The ‎number of secondary oocyte in all fetal treated groups showed significant decrease in ‎comparison to the other group. Also it showed that the number of graffian follicles and corpus ‎luteum in fetal treated groups has a significant decrease in comparison to the newborn treated ‎rats (p<0.001). This study showed that carbamazepine during organogenesis can negative effects ‎on female sex glands. So it seems that gonads are very sensitive to carbamazepine and its ‎sensitivity is dose- dependent. ‎