The Role of Quercetin in Mitigating Cisplatin-Induced Cardiac Oxidative Stress and Inflammation in Rats

Cisplatin has proven to be among the top chemotherapies for many cancer kinds but, the very heart of its utility is its capacity to cause cardiotoxicity, nephrotoxicity, and other side effects which are a result of the drug's action, and it is the only partially understood mechanism behind all those effects that really hinder its clinical application. Despite considerable progress in guideline-directed cardiovascular therapy, the risk of cardiovascular disease persists, attributable in part to oxidative stress, chronic inflammation, endothelial dysfunction, and mitochondrial damage — side effects of this drug that current medications do not fully address. This experimental study aimed to comprehensively evaluate the protective antioxidant and anti-inflammatory role of quercetin in reducing cisplatin-induced cardiotoxicity in male albino rats. Forty male albino rats (200–250 g) were randomly allocated into four equal groups (10 rats each): a healthy control group, a cisplatin group, a quercetin group, and a cisplatin + quercetin group. Acute injury was induced by a single intraperitoneal injection of cisplatin (7 mg/kg), and quercetin (50 mg/kg) was administered orally once daily for 14 days Cardiac function markers, inflammatory marker, oxidative stress, and lipid/ DNA damage markers together with antioxidant markers such as glutathione, superoxide dismutase and catalase were analyzed. , together with histopathological examination using haematoxylin and eosin (H&E) staining. The results showed that cisplatin administration caused a significant (p < 0.05) increase in serum cardiac-injury markers (Troponin I,LDH), oxidative-stress and lipid/DNA-damage markers (MDA,8-Isoprostane,8-OHdG), and the pro-inflammatory factor (TNF-α), accompanied by a sharp decline in enzymatic and non-enzymatic antioxidants (GSH, SOD, CAT). In contrast, treatment with quercetin showed high efficacy in restoring biochemical, physiological, and histological balance, as injury, inflammation, and oxidation markers decreased significantly while cellular antioxidants increased, with a marked improvement in the H&E-stained histological picture of the cardiac muscle. We conclude that quercetin possesses a high cardioprotective capacity through suppression of oxidative stress and inflammatory pathways.