The safety of botulinum neurotoxin type A's intraarticular application in experimental animals

摘要: In vivo studies of botulinum neurotoxin type A (BoNT-A) enabled characterization of its activity in the nociceptive sensory system separate from its preferred action in motor and autonomic nerve terminals. However, in the recent rodent studies of arthritic pain which employed high intra-articular (i.a.) doses (expressed as a total number of units (U) per animal or U/kg), possible systemic effects have not been conclusively excluded. Herein we assessed the effect of two pharmaceutical preparations, abobotulinumtoxinA (aboBoNT-A, 10, 20, and 40 U/kg corresponding to 0.05, 0.11, and 0.22 ng/kg neurotoxin) and onabotulinumtoxinA (onaBoNT-A, 10 and 20 U/kg corresponding to 0.09 and 0.18 ng/kg, respectively) injected into the rat knee, on safety-relevant readouts: digit abduction, motor performance and weight gain during 14 days post-treatment.The i. a. toxin produced dose-dependent impairment of the toe …