Mahsa Kamali and Habibolah Johari
Accepted Abstracts: Surgery Curr Res
Background: The use of medicinal plants to reduce pain is important. Ferula assafoetida has been introduced as an analgesic agent in traditional medicine and is widely used to relieve neuropathic pain. The aim of this study was to investigate the analgesic effect of Ferula assafoetidaethanolic extract on chronic pain. Methods: This study was carried out on 40 mice weighing 300-350 g. chronic pain was investigated using a formalin test. In this experiment 40 mice were divided into 5 groups as follows: Control group, experimental groups 1,2 and 3 received 75, 150 and 300 mg/kg of alcoholic extract, respectively; experimental group 4 received 100 mg/kg ibuprofen. The effect of ethanolic extract was compared with the analgesic effect of ibuprofen as standard analgesic drugs. Data were analyzed by SPSS using Tukey test. Result: Results obtained from this study showed that the ethanolic extract of Ferula assafoetida produced an analgesic effect (P<0.05) at two doses of 150 and 300 mg/kg, i.p. The analgesic effect of extract was not lower than that of ibuprofen (100 mg/ kg) (P<0.05). Conclusion: The analgesic effect of Ferula assafoetida was also comparable to that of ibuprofen, well known for their analgesic effects. Further investigations to establish a link between the analgesic effect of Ferula assafoetida and particular phytochemicals, are recommended.
