Methods: Fifty four Balb/C mice of 7 to 10 weeks old under influence of estrogen were inoculated with 5x104 stationary-phase blastoconidia of C. albicans, intravaginally. The mice were divided in three groups, treated with glucan vaginally (5mg/mL) and intraperitoneally (1mg/mL), and the control group that received saline, intraperitoneally. Vaginal lavage was obtained on days 2, 5, 8 e 10 after inoculation with C. albicans for the count of CFU by pour-plate method. Moreover, in the days 6, 9 and 11 after inoculation, three mice from each group were sacrificed and the vaginas were removed for histophatological analysis. The slides were stained by hematoxylin-eosin to evaluate the infiltrate of neutrophils and periodic acid-Schiff (PAS) for analyze of fungal burden.
Results: The mice treated with intraperitoneal and vaginal glucan showed smaller number of the CFU of C. albicans in the vaginal fluid, compared with control mice. However, just intraperitoneal group showed decrease of CFU statistically significant of 1.98 folds (p˂0,01), in the 8 day that was confirmed with histopathological analysis. The groups treated with glucan showed greater infiltration of neutrophilis compared with control group, but only vaginal group showed increase of neutrophilis statistically significant of 3,3 fold (p˂0,01), in the 9 day, compared to control group.
Conclusions: The data suggest that glucan may have an important activity in protection against vulvovaginal candidiasis associated to C. albicans.