Abstract
Acute and subacute oral toxicity of $HELIKIT^{TM}$ ($^{13}C-urea$) were carried out in Sprague-Dawley rats of both sex. The toxicity of $HELIKIT^{TM}$ was compared with urea($^{12}C-urea$ which is used for control). In acute toxicity studies, we daily examined number of deaths, clinical signs, body weights and pathological examination for 14 days after single oral administration of HELIKIT or urea($^{12}C-urea$) at a dose of 5000 mg/kg. The subacute oral toxicity was investigated in Sprague-Dawley rats treated with $HELIKIT^{TM}$ at a dose of 40, 200 and 1,000 mg/kg/day or $^{12}C-urea$ at a dose of 1,000 mg/kg/day for 4 weeks. In acute toxicity studies, $HELIKIT^{TM}$ and urea did not show any toxic effect in rats and oral LD50 value was over 5,000 mg/kg rats. In subacute toxicity studies, no death occured and no drug-related changes were found in clinical observations; body weight, food consumption, opthalmoscopy. auditory test, urinalysis, hematology, blood chemistry, gross pathological examination or organ weight between $HELIKIT^{TM}$, urea and control groups. In histopathological examinations, the slight thickening of mucosa of the limiting ridge in the stomach was noted in the animals treated with $HELIKIT^{TM}$ at a dose of 1,000 mg/kg/day and also the changes in urea group at a dose of 1,000 mg/kg/day was found, but all of these changes in the changes in ures group at a dose of 1,000 mg/kg/days was found, but all of these changes in the stomach regressed after withdrawal of the test article for 2 weeks and reversibility of the effect was revealed. These results indicate that the non toxic dose level of $HELIKIT^{TM}$ was 1,000 mg/kg/day in the 4 weeks-repeated dose study, suggesting that the substitution of $^{13}C$ for carbon in urea molecule has no effect on the toxicity of urea and changes in stomach are reversible.