Hydrogen-rich saline attenuates cardiac and hepatic injury in a doxorubicin rat model by inhibiting inflammation and apoptosis
Gao Y et al. · Mediators Inflamm. 2016;2016:1320365.
What kind of evidence is this?
Preclinical
Randomized controlled rat experiment of doxorubicin-associated cardiac and hepatic toxicity
Cancer research
Other forms
Not reported in this record.
Not reported in this record.
Methods at a glance
Male Wistar rats receiving repeated doxorubicin injections
90 rats: normal saline n=30, doxorubicin n=30 and doxorubicin plus H₂ saline n=30
Daily H₂-saline treatment for 30 days
0.55 mmol/L hydrogen-rich saline, 10 mL/kg intraperitoneally every day during the 30-day doxorubicin protocol
H₂ dissolved in saline — H₂ only, not Brown’s gas and not inhalation.
Approximately 0.55 mmol/L dissolved H₂.
Not applicable — intraperitoneal saline, not gas inhalation.
No O₂ was co-delivered as part of the intervention.
Doxorubicin plus ordinary saline and a non-doxorubicin saline group
Outcomes and reported result
Survival, echocardiography, histology, BNP, AST, ALT, albumin, ROS, MDA, inflammatory and apoptosis proteins
Survival was 25/30 with H₂ saline versus 18/30 with doxorubicin alone. Cardiac function, tissue injury and several oxidative, inflammatory and apoptosis measures also favored H₂ saline; serum albumin did not significantly improve versus doxorubicin.
Dose, allocation, full methods, positive and null results checked in the open-access full text.
A reported association, difference or mechanism is not automatically a clinical benefit. Null findings, outcome type, study design and precision all matter.
Cautions and applicability
Rat toxicity model, not a cancer-treatment trial and not evidence that H₂ changes tumor control. A published corrigendum should be consulted with the original article.
Doxorubicin-associated cardiac and hepatic toxicity in rats, not patients receiving chemotherapy.
Not reported in this record.
Not reported in this record.
Not reported in this record.
No single-study GRADE certainty rating is assigned. Certainty is assessed by important outcome across a complete eligible evidence set, not by attaching a final grade to one source.
Sources and record status
PMID: 28104928 · DOI: 10.1155/2016/1320365
Open-access full text is available through PMC.
Open-access PMC full text and PubMed record.
2026-08-10