In vitro and in vivo efficacy of carvacrol against Echinococcus granulosus

JULIA FABBRI; MAGGIORE M; PENSEL PATRICIA ; GUILLERMO DENEGRI; GENDE LIESEL; ELISSONDO CELINA

ACTA TROPICA

ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV

Lugar: Amsterdam; Año: 2016

0001-706X

Currently, benzimidazoles are used as chemotherapeutic agents and as a complement to surgery andPAIR in the treatment of cystic echinococcosis (CE). They are generally applied at high doses causingside effects and, 50% of cases do not respond favorably to such chemotherapy. The use of essential oilsobtained by distillation from aromatic plants would be an effective alternative or complementary to thesynthetic compounds, because would not bring the appearance of side effects. Carvacrol and his isomerthymol are the main phenolic components from essential oils of Origanum vulgare (oregano) and Thy-mus vulgaris (thyme). The aim of the present work was to evaluate the in vitro and in vivo efficacy ofcarvacrol against Echinococcus granulosus metacestodes. For the in vitro assay, protoscoleces and cysts ofE. granulosus were incubated with carvacrol at the following final concentrations: 10, 5 and 1 g/ml ofcarvacrol. The maximum protoscolicidal effect was found with 10 g/ml of carvacrol. Results of viabilitytests were consistent with the structural and ultrastructural damage observed in protoscoleces. Ultra-structural studies revealed that the germinal layer of cysts treated with carvacrol lost the multicellularstructure feature. In the clinical efficacy study, a reduction in cyst weight was observed after the adminis-tration of 40 mg/kg of carvacrol during 20 days in mice with cysts developed during 4 months, comparedto that of those collected from control mice. Given that the in vivo effect of carvacrol was comparable withthe treatment of reference with ABZ and the fact that is a safe compound, we postulated that carvacrolmay be an alternative option for treatment of human CE.