Study of the effect of phytocomposition based on the drug “Arthritan” on the ultrastructure of cartilage in rats with systemic steroid arthritis

Recently, there has been a trend towards wider use of herbal medicines, which is associated with their pharmacodynamic polytropy, a fairly high level of safety and economic affordability. The aim of the work is the study chondroprotective properties of phytocomposition based on the drug “Artritan” under the conditions of evaluation of the ultrastructure of the cartilage tissue of rats with experimental arthritis. Materials and methods. The study of chondroprotective properties of the investigated phytocomposition based on the drug “Arthritan” was conducted under the conditions of systemic steroid arthritis modeling in rats. Animals received phytocomposition at a conditional therapeutic dose of 0.1 ml/kg. The effectiveness of the phytocomposition was evaluated by the results of the rats' articular cartilage ultrastructure study. Results. The results of the cartilage tissue ultrastructure study in rats with experimental arthritis under the influence of phytocomposition indicate that this drug has a positive effect on the course of systemic steroid arthritis in rats. Moreover, in terms of the degree of influence on the biosynthetic processes in chondrocytes and the structure of the cartilage matrix, it is not inferior to the activity of the reference drug “Arthron Flex”. Phytocomposition causes positive changes, which are manifested by increased biosynthetic processes in the cells. First of all, this is evidenced by the increase in the content of membrane structures in the form of long profiles of granular endoplasmic reticulum and Golgi plate complexes and the disappearance of chondrocytes at different stages of cell death in micropreparations. Conclusions. On the model of systemic steroid arthritis in rats, a positive therapeutic effect of the studied phytocomposition was established along with the well-known chondroprotector “Arthron Flex”, which was confirmed by the improvement of the ultrastructure of the articular tissue.