Background: Most drugs used for the treatment of trichinosis showed a limited bioavailability, and
induced adverse side effects on administrating high doses. Therefore, there is a need to develop new
agents to improve the bioavailability of these drugs.
Objective: To assess the efficacy of metformin (MTF) administration as a co-drug with ALZ to treat
muscular trichinosis.
Material and Methods: A total of 25 mice were divided into five equal groups, categorized as negative
control group, and four T. spiralis-infected groups: positive control, MTF-treated group, ALZ-treated group,
and combined MTF-ALZ-treated group. Larval burden, muscle histopathology, new vascular formation by
measuring CD34, and expression of the gene encoding myogenin (Myog) by real time PCR were investigated
at the end of the experiment 35th day post-infection (dpi).
Results: The results demonstrated that the group treated with MTF plus ALZ had the best outcome
among all parameters, followed by the group treated with MTF, and finally the group treated with ALZ.
Both MTF with ALZ proved to be a promising combination for the treatment of muscular trichinosis in
experimentally-infected mice.
Conclusion: It was concluded that MTF reduced the pathology of muscular phase of trichinosis. Further
studies are recommended to better understand MTF pharmacokinetics.