The Comparative Double Blind Clinical Trial of Antihelmintic Efficacy Among Mebendazole, Thai Traditional Herbal Formulae and Areca catechu L.

Abstract

This study was carried out in Mahasarakham Primary Healthcare Centre, Mahasarakham province in the area of Northeastern of Thailand. The experiment was randomized control trial clinical comparative study in order to examine the antihelmintic activity efficacy among Mebendazole, Thai Traditional Formulae, Areca catechu Linn. in the treatment of 200 mixed worms infection in human. The experimental group consisted of 150 patients and 50 patients for control group with inclusion and exclusion criteria which were screened by the selected mix worm infected patients samples. The investigation and extraction of worm eggs per gram of patient feces method (EPG) were performed with Ether Formalin Sedimentation test. The percentage of reduction of eggs per gram (EPG) of patient feces were collected, counted and confirmed by parasitologist and the clinical efficacy were investigated by the physician and the pharmacist. The % EPG data were collected before and after the treatment with Mebendazole, Thai Traditional Formulae, Areca catechu Linn. and with placebo. The result showed that Thai Traditional Formulae had the highest efficacy in antihelmintic activity followed by the efficacy of Mebendazole and Areca catechu Linn. respectively. The antihelmintic efficacy which were measured by the % reduction of egg worm per gram of patient feces were 93.69, 87.50, 68.12 respectively. The statistical analysis confirmation in this study were carried out by Wilcoxson Signed Ranks test and Kruskal Wallis method.
The suggestion of this study should increase the number of samples of worm infected patients which the samples can be identified with more specific helminthes genus and species in order to obtain various types of efficacy by the treatment of different medicine as mentioned above.
Key words: Efficacy; Thai Traditional Formula medicine; Mebendazole; Areca Catechu Lin.; Egg per gram