Preventive but Not Curative Efficacy of Celecoxib on Bladder Carcinogenesis in a Rat Model

Figure 2

Microscopic histomorphological evaluation of bladder urothelium. The bladder from control (a) and CEL (b) treated rats had no signs of preneoplasic lesions (neither hyperplasia nor dysplasia) or gross tumor formation. In the carcinogen (BBN) group (c), the bladder from all the animals presented hyperplasia and high-grade dysplasia (c1), including those without tumor formation, as well as malignant lesions, mainly papillary tumors (c2), but also infiltrative and CIS. In the preventive CEL+BBN-P treatment (d), only one bladder of the 8 rats presented tumor formation with dysplasia (d1), while all the other rats have presented a normal urothelium profile (d2), contrasting with the pattern found in the curative CEL (BBN+CEL-C group) use (e), which reveals preneoplasic, including high-grade hyperplasia and dysplasia (e1), and neoplasic lesions, even more malignant (e2) (H&E staining (x100)).