The Study of Hypericum perforatum extract on wound healing in rabbit

Wound healing is a natural reaction to injury witch results in restoration of tissue integrity. Repair consists of four phases: inflammation, re-epithelialization, angiogenesis, fibroblast recruitment and scarring. In this study the healig effect of Hypericum perforatum extract was investigated on open wound. Hydroalcoholic extract of Hypericum P. was prepared by maceration method. Newzeland rabbits of either sexes weighting 1.6-2.5 kg were used. Method of Cross et al (1995) was used to perform excisional wound. Hairs of lower back and left flank of animal was carefully shaved and cleaned. Animal was held in standard crouching position. A template measuring 20×20 mm was placed on the skin and the outline traced using a fixed-tipped pen. Desired area was locally anasthetised with lidocaine 2%. Full thickness wound was made by excising the skin using a scalped blade and forceps. Every day the outline of each wound was traced by using a transparent plastic sheet. Treatment of wounds started from the first moments, twice daily. In other to minimize the errors, measurment was repeated three times. Then area of wounds was calculated by mm chart paper. Wound of bland group were left untreated. Second group was treated with eucerin as placebo control, in third group phenytion cream 1% was used as standard control and in other groups different concentration of hypericum extract 2%, 5%, and 10% w/w in eucerin base were adminstrated twice daily. Area of wound in the first day was considerd as 100% and area of subequent days were compared with initial day. Percentage of healing was calculared by substracting the percentage of area from 100. Healing of eucerin and phenytoin groups lasted 21 and 158 day respectively. Healing in Hypericum cream of 2%, 5% and 10% groups lasted 14, 15 and 16 days respectively. Best results obtained with 2% extract. The result of this study confirms that Hypericum cream 2% had the best wound healing effect even better than phenytion cream, however the Hypericum Cream 5% & 10% had good and noticeable effect too.