It is great the number of patients that inhale nicotine daily through the habit of smoking and eventually they have to be submitted to operations in the digestive tract. Being the nicoti11e an agent that has been implied in the retard of wound healing, an experimental study was accomplished in rats in order to test its effect in the histological evolution of the healing of intestinal anastomosis. Seventeen Wistar rats weighting 275 ± 14g were used. They were randomly divided in group I (n=9) and group II (n=8), anesthetized with sulfuric ether and operated with aseptic technique. The nicotine was administered subcutaneously in the dose of 5mg/kg in alternate days, during 17 days in the group I rats, and placebo was used in the group II. After seven days of nicotine and placebo use, the jejunum was sectioned and an anastomosis was done with polipropilene 6-0. In the 10th day the rats were killed with overdose of sulfuric ether and a biopsy of the anastomosis was made. The seccions were processed and colored with hematoxiline-eosine and the histological data were quantified through scores. The histological analysis revealed that the group I reached the score 135 (average 15±4,41) and the group II 218 (average 27,25±4,89). In agreement with the t test, the difference was significant (p <0,05). The data allow to conclude that the nicotine, when administered subcutaneously in rats, contributes to retard the healing of intestinal anastomoses.
Nicotine; Wound healing; Intestinal anastomosis