External anal sphincter fatigue is not improved by N-acetylcysteine in an animal model

Abstract  Oxidative stress is associated with skeletal muscle fatigue. This study tests the hypotheses that N -acetylcysteine (NAC) reduces fatigue and accelerates recovery of the rat external anal sphincter (EAS). Fifteen female Wistar rats were killed humanely. The EAS was mounted as a ring preparation and electrically stimulated with 50 Hz trains of 200 ms in duration every 4 s for three and a half minutes. Three groups were analysed: a control group ( n  = 5), a group pretreated with NAC (10⁻⁴ mol L⁻¹; n  = 5) and a group pretreated with NAC (10⁻³ mol L⁻¹; n  = 5). A novel fatigue index was formulated and was compared to a conventional method of expressing fatigue. There was no significant difference at concentrations of NAC (10⁻⁴ mol L⁻¹; P  > 0.05). At high concentrations of NAC (10⁻³ mol L⁻¹) there was a significant depression in peak twitch amplitude before fatigue ( P  = 0.04). N -Acetylcysteine in both concentrations used, did not alter fatigue or recovery of the rat EAS. There was a significant positive correlation between the two methods of expressing fatigue but the conventional method produced a higher fatigue index (22.4% on average). N -Acetylcysteine does not ameliorate fatigue or accelerate recovery of the EAS and may not be a useful medical therapy for faecal incontinence.