Antrodia cinnamomea Reduces Oxidative Injury and Protects Cardiac Histology in Doxorubicin-Induced Cardiotoxicity

Doxorubicin (DOX) cardiotoxicity is induced by oxidative stress and results in myocardial damage. We assessed the efficacy of Antrodia cinnamomea in alleviating DOX-induced cardiac injury in rats. Twenty-four male Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly assigned to one of four groups: Control, DOX (2 mg/kg i.p., every other day for 10 days), Antrodia cinnamomea (100 mg/kg p.o., daily), or DOX + Antrodia cinnamomea (2 mg/kg i.p., every other day for 10 days and 100 mg/kg p.o., daily). H&E was used to look at the hearts and give them a semi-quantitative injury score. We investigated malondialdehyde (MDA), superoxide dismutase (SOD), and reduced glutathione (GSH) in left-ventricular homogenates. DOX caused a lot of damage to the heart muscle, disorganized myofibrils, created vacuoles in the cytoplasm, changed the shape of the nucleus, and caused interstitial edema. The injury scores were much higher than in the Control group (p