Morphological Alterations of Parotid Salivary Gland in Rats during Experimental Dehydration of the Organism while Taking Vitamin E

Based on the general tendency for the growth of population ageing, climate changes, health deterioration of young people, the salivary gland dysfunction can become a common problem in future. Thus, studying the morphological alterations of the parotid gland of old rats during experimental dehydration of the organism and under conditions of its pharmacological correction will promote the acquisition of new knowledge for the prevention and treatment of diseases of the salivary glands in the elderly people. The purpose of the study was to determine the possibilities of correcting the structural changes in the parotid salivary gland of old rats with vitamin E, which arose during dehydration. Materials and methods. The study was conducted on 12 white laboratory male rats of old age. The rats of the experimental series after the simulation of the severe degree of total dehydration received normal drinking water in full for 28 days and daily one drop of oilseed vitamin E solution. The ultrascopic examination was carried out according to the standard scheme (D. S. Sarkisov, 1996; J. Kuo, 2007). Results and their discussion. It was found out that after the severe general dehydration on the 28th day of correction in the parotid salivary gland of elderly rats occurred the proliferation of connective tissue in the interstitial layers, most of the acini were deformed, the arterioles wall thickens and spastically decreases, the gap of capillaries was narrowed. The number of lipid inclusions, vacuoles and secondary lysosomes was increasing, the cisterns of the endoplasmic reticulum and tubules of the Golgi apparatus expand in the serous cells cytoplasm, the area of acini decreased by 11.23 % (p = 0.2925), the area of cytoplasm and the serous cells nuclei – by 12.37 % (p = 0.0018) and 8.55 % (p = 0.2607) respectively, the nuclear-cytoplasmic ratio of serous cells increased by 4.28 % (p = 0.5831). Conclusion. Thus, the influence of vitamin E did not lead to the complete restoration of morphological changes that have arisen in the parotid gland in the rats of old age caused by the total dehydration of the body.