Singular and Combined Healing Activity of Aqueous Extract of Artemisia Jordanica and Achillea Fragrantissima in Rabbit’s Incision, Excision and Burn Models.

Abstract

Context: Treating wounds of various ailments is a large part of the public health care budget. The Artemisia jordanica (Aj) and Achillea fragrantissima (Af) plants are folk medicinal plants that are still increasingly used to treat wounds by healers. Objective: The purpose of this study was to investigate the activity and wound healing by using the singular and combined aqueous extracts of both herbs Aj and Af. Wound healing activity was followed through excision, incision, and burn wound models. Methods: Animals were divided into eight groups (n = 8), each group was divided into two sub-groups (n = 4), one for incision and the second for both excision and burn models. Groups were treated with either 5% or 10% w/w of combined or single herb(s). Betadine and petroleum gel were used as positive and negative control, respectively. Wound contraction rate, tensile strength, period of epithelization and histological transformations were used as scores to evaluate the effect of treatments on wound healing in wounds models. Results and discussion: Wound healing activity of 10% combined aqueous extracts of (Aj-Af) has shown a worthy attainment which has evidenced by inducement of tensile strength on the 22.1 ± 1.34 day of the treatment as compared with positive control on the 21.8 ± 0.73 day of the treatment. The wound contraction rate was occurred on the 17.4 ± 0.7 day of the treatment (p < 0.05) compared with positive and negative control on the 18.5 ± 0.14 and 24.5 ± 0.7 days of the treatment, respectively. Histological observation indicates that the wounds treated with 10% Aj-Af extract have showed thickening of epidermis and formation of granulation tissue with more prominent collagenation and blood vessels formation. Conclusions: Singular and combined aqueous extracts of Aj and Af exhibited good healing activities compared with negative and positive control (p < 0.05). Both singular and combined extracts induced significant healing markings; tensile strength, wound contraction rate, granulation and collagenation compared with negative and positive controls. Moreover, healing potential activity of combined extract (mainly 10%) revealed better marginal healing activity regarding single-herb use.