Effect of licorice on pharmacokinetics of nimesulide in birds

This investigation was designed to evaluate the influence of Licorice, a CYP2C9 inhibiting flavonoid on the pharmacokinetics of nimesulide in broiler chicken. Birds of 2 kgs b wt, randomly divided into two groups with 8 birds in each. To both the groups (I & II) nimesulide was administered at 2 mg.kg^-1 b wt as single oral dose, where as group II birds were administered 500 mg.kg^-1 b wt of licorice extract as pretreatment one hour before the nimesulide administration. Blood samples were collected from tarsal vein at pre-determined time intervals prior to and after administration of nimesulide. Plasma was separated and analyzed for nimesulide by HPLC assay. Based on plasma concentrations of nimesulide, the pharmacokinetic parameters were determined by non-compartmental methods. The pharmacokinetic parameters such as AUC0_-", Cl_β, t_1/2β, Vd_ss and MRT were not altered significantly when compared between two groups. There was no significant difference in either plasma concentrations or pharmacokinetic parameters of nimesulide in both the groups studied. We conclude that the licorice, a putative inhibitor of CYP2C9 and CYP3A4 has no effect on the activity of these enzymes in birds.