WOUND HEALING PROPERTIES OF PIPER BETLE LEAF EXTRACT

Abstract

Piper betle L. is one of the invaluable medicinal plants that has been traditionally used to treat inflammatory wound in folk medicine in Southeast Asia countries.  The objective of this research was aimed to study the wound healing properties of  P. betle leaf.  The ethanolic extract of  P. betle was successively partitioned over hexane, dichloromethane, ethyl acetate and water to give the corresponding fractions.  The anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant and fibroblast stimulatory activities of the ethanolic extract and its fractions were test using in vitro study.  The ethanolic extract and its fractions were showed good anti-inflammatory activity with IC50 value ranging 5.6-11.6 µg/ml.  Moreover, it was found that the ethyl acetate fraction the potent anti-inflammatory activity (5.6 µg/ml) also exhibited the most anti-oxidant activity with an IC50 values 2.7 µg/ml.  Among the isolated fractions, the dichloromethane fraction showed the potent fibroblast stimulatory activities via enhanced fibroblast proliferation (126.9%) and fibroblast migration (64.3%) on day two as well as stimulation of collagen production (42.1 µg/ml) at concentration of 12.5 µg/ml.  This study revealed that ethanolic extract of  P. betle and its fractions possess anti-inflammatory effect, anti-oxidant activity and fibroblast stimulatory activities which are important factors for wound healing enhancement.