Repositorio Académico

The guinea pig, (Cavia porcellus) is a rodent pertaining to the Rodentia group and the Caviidae family, used as a laboratory animal and for human consumption. Quantitative parameters of the kidney provides important information of its morphofunction, given its labor in the organism's homeostasis. The aim or this study was to describe the kidney of the guinea pig (Cavia porcellus), analyzing the stereological characteristics for future experimental studies. Five male guinea pigs (Cavia porcellus) obtained from the Biotery of the Universidad de la Frontera, Temuco, Chile, were used. The kidney of the guinea pig weighed approximately 3.2g. The kidney has 140,298 total glomerulus, Nv of 458 mm3, Vv of 7.89% and Sv of 3.58 mm2/mm3. The glomerular volume of the kidney was of 1.73 x 10-4 mm3 and a glomerular diameter of 90 μm. Factors such as species, age, body weight and renal volume, are important to consider, as they differentiate the results in the morphofunctional investigations.