A Study On Sensitization Caused By Puerarin Injection

Puerarin injection (PI) has been extensively used clinically. However the reports about its adverse drug reaction (ADR), most of which are acute intravascular hemolytic anemia,are also increasing along with its frequent use, and are becoming the major stumbling block in its further clinical application.In this pharmacological study a ommercial brand of PI GeChang which was reported to have ADR was used as the experimental drug, and bovine serum albumin was used as the control drug. Immune turbidity method, paraffin section staining, etc. were employed in studies of in vitro and in vivo on mice for the hemolytic effects, hemolysin enhancement and clinical simulating experiments.The results showed that PI GeChang did not induce hemolysis in vitro directly. It caused a rise of hemolysin in normal mice with a non-dose correlated manner, and it further increased the pre-existing hyper-normal level of hemolysin induced by other factors such as sheep red blood cells. The paraffin section staining indicated pathological kidney damages. The immuno-globulin G data of this study supported that certain brand of PI contained substances causing type II hypersensitivity immune reaction. It is suggested that further analysis to be carried out to search for the antigens in PI as well as methods to eliminate such antigens.