EFFICACY OF A NEW MEBENDAZOLE FORMULATION FOR EXPERIMENTAL ECHINOCOCCUS GRANULOSUS LARVAL INVASION IN ALBINO MICE

The problem of echinococcosis has acquired special urgency in Russia in the last 10 years. The dramatically worse epidemiological situation of echinococcosis in the country is suggested by just frequent cases of cystic echinococcosis in the indigenous population of Moscow and its region, including children. Currently, albendazole that is less toxic than mebendazole remains the drug of choice, However, some authors note that E. granulosus larval cysts are moresusceptible to mebendazole than to albendazole. Both drugs mainly show parasitological activity and have no larvicidal effect particularly in larval alveococcosis. Analysis of the results of chemotherapy, with a group of benzimidazole carbamates for echinococcosis in 6 clinical centers from 5 European countries (Italy, Bulgaria, Romania, Greece, and Turkey) over the past 30 years showed that the evaluation of therapeutic effectiveness was overestimated; thus, 40% of all parasitic larval cysts that were considered dead became active again after, 2 years after the treatment. The original oil micronized mebendazole suspension tested by us in albino mice with late-stage larval cystic echinococcosis showed the properties of a highly effective and safe systemic larvicide that caused prompt death in the entire parasite population in the treated animals even in extreme hyperinvasion when the baseline parasite weight was greater than the host's one.