Pathology of acute oral toxicity of sodium fluoride in Wistar rats

Toxicopathological effects of sodium fluoride (NaF) with acute toxic dose were studied in female Wistar rats. The acute toxic dose of NaF was determined by approximate lethal dose (ALD) method. The ALD for NaF was found to be 253.125 mg/kg body weight, orally in female Wistar rats. The rat showed signs of depression, prostration, piloerection, scant droppings, profuse salivation, initial colourless lacrimation followed by chromodacryorrhoea, dyspnoea, passage of dark reddish -black pasty faeces, gasping, cyanotic paws, hunched posture, soiled perineum and loss of reflexes. The rat died after 8 hours of oral NaF administration. The pathomorphological changes observed at necropsy were those of generalized congestion in vital organs i.e., liver, heart, kidneys, spleen and brain along with frothy catarrhal gastritis. Apart from haemorrhages and congestion in liver, lungs, kidneys and heart, the histopathological lesions represented degenerative and necrotic changes and dilated sinusoids in liver, degeneration and necrosis of tubular epithelium and glomeruli in kidneys, severe degenerative and necrotic changes in cardiac muscles, severe lymphocytolysis in the Malpighian corpuscles in spleen, thickening of interalveolar septa in lungs and mild degenerative and necrotic changes in neurons of brain.