The present study was designed to evaluate the antischistosomal activity of the herbal medicine; saffron on mice infected with Schistosoma mansoni species. Mice were divided into three groups; each group contains seven mice. The first group was served as normal control and mice of the other two groups was individually infected with 60±5 Schistosoma mansoni cercaria. One of them was the infected group and the other group mice were orally treated with 0.2 ml of saffron extract (100mg/kg) six weeks post infection three times weekly for four weeks. After the last dose; all mice were sacrificed. Mice liver infected with Schistosoma mansoni cercaria displayed an extremely elevation (P ≤ 0.001) in liver weight, ova count, ALT and AST levels. Otherwise, it induced an extremely reduction (P ≤ 0.001) in both albumin and total protein levels. Saffron extract modulated all the previous mentioned parameters to be near to normal values. Histologically, mice liver infected with Schistosoma mansoni cercaria showed portal fibrosis, granulomatous nodules, and focal cell infiltration. Saffron extract ameliorated the histological structure of liver by reducing the different histopathological effects induced with Schistosoma mansoni cercaria. Finally, saffron has a powerful antischistosomal activity in mice infected with Schistosoma mansoni cercaria.
Key words: Schistosoma mansoni, liver weight, ova count, ALT, AST, albumin, total proteins, saffron.
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