Acute and sub-acute toxicological evaluation of ethanol extract of Alchornea cordifolia leaves in Wistar rats

Introduction: Medicinal plants have over time played important roles in many indigenous primary health care systems . Alchornea cordifolia, a widely distributed plant, is a commonly used medicinal plant for the treatment and management of many disease conditions. The present study involved the evaluation of the acute and sub-acute toxicity studies of ethanol leaf extract of A. cordifolia in male Wistar rats. Methods: The hematological and biochemical profiles evaluation was via the automated hematologic analyzer and the spectrophotometer with sodium and calcium ions evalua-tions using flame photometer, and tissue histopathological evaluations following standard procedures. Results: The results showed no visible signs of acute toxicity at a limit dose of 50 0 0 mg/kg. The plant leaf extract did not induce anemia or change the immunocompetence of the treated rats after 28 days of treatment. There was a significant ( p < 0.05) alteration in some of the evaluated biochemical parameters. Visible histopathological changes occurred only in the liver and pancreas of the treated rats. The recorded changes following the treatment were more obvious at 200 mg/kg than in other groups compared to the control. Discussion/Conclusion: These findings showed that the use of ethanol leaf extract of the plant is apparently safe when administered orally. However, the plant leaf extract needs investigation over prolonged exposure, and at higher doses, because of some forms of hepato-intestinal cellular damage observed in the treated male Wistar rats at the present administration. (c) 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of African Institute of Mathematical Sciences / Next Einstein Initiative. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ )