Pustaka Ilmiah Universitas Padjadjaran

Abstrak

Hepatoprotective And Antioxidant Activity Of The Ethanol Extract Of Cassia Fistula L. Barks

Cassia fistula L., usually used as an alternative medicine in Indonesia, is one of medicinal plants indicated for various efficacies. Pharmacological studies on the leaves of this plant have been carried out and they indicated that the leaves have several pharmacological activities, one of which is hepatoprotective activity against hepatoxicity induced by isoniazid and rifampicin or paracetamol. This study was carried out to investigate hepatoprotective activity of the ethanol extract of barks of this plant against hepatoxicity induced by paracetamol on rats and antioxidant activity of the extract by the DPPH radical scavenging method. In addition, acute toxicity of the extract was also examined. The results indicated that the ethanol extract at doses of 150 and 300 mg/kg of body weight gave hepatoprotective effects with SGPT levels of 60.83 and 56.95 IU/L, respectively, and SGOT levels of 134.30 and 110.17 IU/L, respectively, significantly different from the control. The extract had radical scavenging activity with IC 50 of 10.613 µg/ml lower than that of ascorbic acid (4.716 µg/ml). The acute toxicity test revealed that the ethanol extract had LD 50 values of 14.52 g/kg in male mice and 16.14g/kg in female mice, indicating that the ethanol extract of C. fistula barks belonged to practically non-toxic category according to the criteria of toxicity. These results provide evidence of the potential of C. fistula barks as hepatoprotector.