PURPOSE: to evaluate experimentally the effects of antiretroviral drugs used alone and in association upon the fertility of pregnant Wistar rats and the perinatal effects on the offspring. METHODS: adult female pregnant Wistar rats weighing 200-230 g were used. The antiretroviral drugs zidovudine (AZT), lamivudine (3TC) and nelfinavir (NFV) were used alone and in association at daily doses of ten times the dose normally used in pregnant women, proportionally to the animal's body weight. Seven groups were studied, including the control one. The experiment started on day 0 and the pregnant animals were sacrificed on day 21. The alive and dead fetuses, the total implantation sites and the total numbers of corporea lutea were used to calculate the fertility values. The statistical analysis was performed by Student's t test and by the Mann-Whitney test. RESULTS: there were no significant statistical differences regarding preimplantation loss and implantation efficiency values of the rats treated with isolated and associated antiretroviral drugs. There was a significant increase in the postimplantation loss values (control group: 7.6%; drug groups variation: 20.2-26.7%), a decrease in the fetal viability values (control group: 92.4%, drug groups variation: 73.3-79.8%), and a decreasing number of fetuses per animal (control group: 14.7; drug groups variation: 11.1-12.7). There was a significant weight reduction of the female rats and of the offspring of animals treated with 3TC, AZT + 3TC and AZT + 3TC + NFV. CONCLUSION: with the administration of high antiretroviral doses, important fertility effects could be observed, which showed that less histotoxic antiretroviral drugs must be studied in order to warrant the safety of using these medicines in pregnant HIV-1 - infected women.
Antiretroviral drugs; Infection and fertility; AIDS; Experimental study
