Treatment of chemically induced free radical mediated cell injury

J.A. CASTRO; G.D. CASTRO

Proceedings of the 3rd Congress of Toxicology in Developing Countries

Third Congress of Toxicology in Developing Countries

Lugar: Cairo; Año: 1996 p. 207 - 222

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Before developing the subject matter of this review the need to introduce some definitions was felt necessary. One is related to the concept of cell injury. This is a key issue for today is believed that many pathologies and among them intoxications, are just the consequences of cell injury produced by different noxious agents or circumstances and in the particular case of poisoning, chemicals.Cell injury is every perturbation that departs the cell from the normal cellular homeostasis. If the cell is able to restore equilibrium, not necessary in the point of the normal one but in other still compatible with the cellular integrated activity, the cell would result reversibly damaged but will survive. If it does not succeed to do it, the cell will die and the damage would be lethal. This in turn poses another question: when a  cell is dead? The cell is dead when it loses its potential capacity to duplicate and when it loses its inherent capacity for self repair. Of course, in this definition exception should be made for cell such as those from the nervous system which do not duplicate. When a sufficient number of cells of a given organ are damaged, the global function of that organ in the body is harmed and becomes responsible for the symptoms of the poisoning. How serious the poisoning is would depend on the intensity, extension and on the degree of reversibility of the damage on the cells, from the organ or organs involved and of course, from the specific relevance they have for the life of the living being under consideration. As the result of this study it results evident that the understanding about how toxics cause cell injury and its characteristics is a central issue in toxicology.Since in this work only chemicals which produce or are themselves free radicals are going to be analyzed then, a definition of what free radicals are also mandatory. Free radical is an atom or molecular structure having an impaired electron (in its outermost orbital). Free ra