Introduction:
Ciprofloxacin is a broad-spectrum antibiotic which can cause a chondrotoxic effect in the growing condyle. Researchers found that green tea showed significant health benefits for a large number of disorders. The objective of the present research was to investigate the preventive potential of green tea extract against mandibular chondrotoxicity induced by ciprofloxacin in juvenile Wistar rats.

Material and methods:
Twenty juvenile male rats were used and divided into four equal groups, the saline/water (S/W), saline/green tea (S/G), ciprofloxacin/water (C/W) and ciprofloxacin/green tea (C/G) treated groups. On day 32 of age, all the animals in C/W and C/G treated groups were subcutaneously injected with ciprofloxacin as two subcutaneous injections of 600 mg/kg of body weight, eight hours apart, while the S/W and S/G groups were subcutaneously injected with saline. The S/G and C/G groups were intragastrically gavaged by green tea extract in an oral dose of 300 mg/kg/day, 8 days before the subcutaneous injection of saline or ciprofloxacin. On day 34, all the animals were anaesthetized, and the mandibular condyle samples were taken immediately and processed.

Results:
In comparison with the C/W treated group, the C/G treated group showed a significant increase in the thickness of the mandibular condylar cartilage, cartilage cell number, glycosaminoglycan content, and Bcl-2 immune expression (p < 0.05).

Conclusions:
This study provides the first evidence that green tea extract can significantly decrease the chondrotoxic effects of ciprofloxacin in a rat mandibular condyle cartilage model.