The most serious form of chronic schistosomiasis is the life-threatening hepatosplenic disease,
accompanied by severe periportal fibrosis, a permanent condition once established. Reversion of
such wound healing process “fibrolysis" is possible if a balance between hepatic cellular regeneration
and the process of scar formation is ensued. In the current work, clove oil alone and combined
with PZQ were used to investigate their anti-fibrotic effect on hepatic fibrosis resulted from
acute and chronic schistosomiasis mansoni in mice. To determine the state of hepatic fibroblasts,
local expression of TGF-β1, a chief profibrogenic molecule was quantified using digital realtime
image analysis and compared with the conventional parasitological and histopathological
analysis. PZQ monotherapy caused a significant reduction in ova count, granuloma number and
size. Local expression of TGF-β1 gave better data as compared to acute and chronic infected
treated mice (11.91±2.53- 20.34±3.05 vs. 7.51±2.11-11.23±2.23) with clove alone treatment &
4.95±1.95-7.51±1.92 in combined therapy (p=0.0000)), indicated low potential in achieving liver
tissue repair. Significant drop in TGF-β1 expression with clove oil treatment, especially when
combined with PZQ, indicated anti-fibrotic potentiality and good impact on liver cells proceeded
towards regeneration supported by such drop. A significant positive correlation between mean
TGF-β1 values and mean granuloma parameters in number and size of different infected groups
(R² = 0.680 & 0.988, respectively in acute infection, 0.363 & 0.505 respectively, in chronic phase
of infection, P value <0.05).