Effect of fasting duration on clinical pathology results in Wistar rats.

Background: Fasting is an important preanalytical factor that may affect the interpretation of hematology and clinical biochemistry data in toxicology or pharmacology studies. Limited information is available on how the results may be affected by different durations of fasting.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to assess the influence of fasting duration on clinical pathology results in male and female rats and to determine an optimum fasting time for preclinical studies.