Abstract
Aspirin and prednisolone have been used alone or in combination in the treatment of rheumatic diseases. We have investigated the significance of the difference of the anti-inflammatory and antipyretic activities between single and concurrent administration of aspirin and prednisolone in rats by using carrageenan as a phlogistic agent and brewer's yeast as a fever inducing agent. When prednisolone (9mg/kg) and aspirin (24mg/kg) were administered orally alone or in combination, both of the concurrent and single adminstration inhibited highly significantly the swelling of rat paw and the concurrent adminstraiton of aspirin and prednisolone showed the significantly higher inhibitory effects than aspirin single adminstration did, whereas there were not any significant differences between the prednisolone single adminstration and combined adminstration. The combined drug of aspirin and prednisolone marketed in Korea contains 148mg of aspirin and 1.15mg of prednisolone in a tablet. Therefore, we examined the anti-inflammatory and antipyretic activities of aspirin (150mg/kg), prednisolone (1mg/kg) and their combination. In anti-inflammatory effects, both of the concurrent and single administration inhibited higly significantly the swelling of rat paw, and the concurrent adminstration exhibited the significantly higher inhibitory effects than aspirin or prednisolon alone did. In antipyretic effects both of the concurrent and the single adminstration reduced significantly the brewer's yeast-induced fever. The effect of concurrent administration was greater than that of prednisolone single adminstration, whereas the effect of aspirin single adminstration was similar to that of combination. The results suggest that the anti-inflammatory and antipyretic effects are intensified by the concurrent adminstration of aspirin and prednisolone, but the antipyretic effects of enough doses of aspirin (150mg/kg) is comparable to that of the combination preparation.