Quantitative pharmacodynamics functional evaluation of Chinese medicine Qizhu formula in mice with dynamic near-infrared photoacoustic imaging.

BACKGROUND & AIMS: Effective anti-fibrotic drugs and new non-invasive evaluation methods for liver fibrosis (LF) are urgently needed. Our study aimed to evaluate the histological effects of the Qizhu (QZ) formula on LF and to explore a non-invasive Near-infrared photoacoustic imaging (NIR-PAI) kinetic model for liver function detection and pharmacodynamic evaluation.

METHODS

C57BL/6 J mice were randomly divided into six groups (n=6). An LF model was induced by CCl for 8 weeks, followed by an 8-week treatment period. Histological and serological parameters were assessed, and indocyanine green (ICG) metabolism (maximum peak time [T] and half-life [T]) was monitored by NIR-PAI. Spearman correlation analysis was conducted to evaluate correlations.

RESULTS & CONCLUSIONS: Histological and serological results confirmed the anti-fibrotic effects of QZ. NIR-PAI kinetic parameters indicated that QZ shortened the T and T of ICG. There were good correlations between ICG metabolism and liver histopathology. The non-invasive NIR-PAI kinetic model shows potential in liver function detection and pharmacodynamic evaluation.