Ethanol-induced gastric ulcer in rats

The ethanol-induced ulcer model has been previously reported³¹. The individual treatments (ranitidine, bismuth subsalicylate, curcumin or TAE) or combined (curcumin-ranitidine, curcumin-bismuth subsalicylate, TAE-ranitidine, TAE-bismuth subsalicylate) were orally administered 30 min before the alcohol-induced gastric damage (absolute ethanol, 1 mL). It is important to notice that for the combined treatments, each compound was individually administered. First, the TAE or curcumin were given to the rats 5 min before the antiulcer drug. Then, the sequence was inverted, and the antiulcer drugs were administered 15 min before the TAE or curcumin. The control group was treated with the vehicle only. Two hours after ethanol administration, the rats were sacrificed in a CO₂ chamber, and their stomachs dissected and fixed with 10 mL of paraformaldehyde 4% for 5 min. Then, the stomachs were opened along the greater curvature and washed with a saline isotonic solution. A picture was taken using a digital microscope (Celestron 44302-A), to determine the damaged area (mm²), using the software Image J (Rasband, W.S., Image J, U.S., National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, USA, http://imagej.nih.gov/ij/, 1997–2004).