Moringa oleifera LEAF EXTRACT LOADED HYDROGEL FOR DIABETIC WOUND HEALING

Abstract

Diabetic wounds (DW) are a chronic, non-healing wound on the feet of diabetic patients that pose a serious challenge to world health. Around 84% of diabetic patients undergo lower leg amputations. Though numerous topical and systemic drugs have been used to heal the DW, these drugs have led to the emergence and subsequent rapid overgrowth of resistant bacterial strains, side effects and toxicity. Many herbal plants have very important role in wound healing because they promote the natural repair mechanisms. Moringaoleifera (MO) is an important medicinal plant which has an impressive range of medicinal uses including antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, antidiabetic, antioxidant and anticancer activities. Recently few researchers reported that MO extracts have effective wound healing property due to the presence of rich flavonoids and vicenin-2.

The objective of the present study was to develop hydrogel formulations loaded with Moringaoleifera leaves extract. The prepared hydrogels were evaluated for physical appearance, rheological behavior, skin irritation and wound-healing power in streptozotocin-induced diabetic male wistar albino rats. Results showed that all hydrogel formulations exhibited good and acceptable physical properties. All the animals tolerated the applied gels and no signs of irritations were noticed during the skin irritation study. The in-vivowound healing studies showed a time dependent increase in percentage of wound, a contraction which is higher than that produced by the control groups. These contractions were statistically significant (P<0.001), during the first 10 days of the study with MO-Hydrogel administration. The MO-hydrogel showed the highest percent wound contraction with complete wound closure and epithelization was observed on 7^thday of wound induction.