Safety and efficacy of topical essential oil as steroid-sparing agent in the treatment of atopic dermatitis in a community outreach care program of New Era University second year medical students, randomized double blind placebo controlled trial

BACKGROUND@#The high rates of atopic dermatitis among children, treatment failures and treatment costs have created the search for new therapies to control flares of atopic dermatitis.@*OBJECTIVES@#We compared the efficacy and safety of topical essential oil (German Chamomile) versus topical steroids (hydrocortisone 1%) in controlling flares of atopic dermatitis.@*METHOD@#We randomly selected 60 children diagnosed of AD or children that qualified to the criteria of AD. They we’re randomly grouped into three. Twenty for Essential Oil (EO) group, twenty for Steroid group (SG) and Twenty for placebo (distilled water) group. They were advised to apply medicine kept in uniform brown plastic bottles 3x a day for 4 weeks. Data were recorded weekly using the EASI (Eczema Score Index) scoring. Other topical medications such as emollients and moisturizers were continued.@*RESULTS@#At week 4 control of flaring was achieved; 42% for EO group and 55% for steroid group. The differences in treatment effects were not statistically significant.@*CONCLUSION@#Essential oil was comparable in cure rate to mild topical steroid. Essential oil can be safe and affordable. However further study in a wider scale is recommended.

Determination of Five Compounds from Two Species of Chamomiles from Xinjiang by QAMS / 医药导报

Objective To establish a method of simultaneously quantitative analysis for multi-components by single marker( QAMS)of galuteolin,apigenin-7-glucoside,7-methoxycoumarin,luteolin and apigenin in two species of Chamomiles from Xinjiang. Methods By using apigenin as the internal standard,the relative correction factors( RCF)of galuteolin,apigenin-7-glucoside,7-methoxycoumarin and luteolin were set and determined by UPLC. The contents of galuteolin,apigenin-7-glucoside,7-methoxycoumarin,luteolin and apigenin in 11 samples of Chamomiles were authentically determined by the external standard method,to verify the accuracy of QAMS. Results There is a good linear relationship within the range of standard curve for five compounds by the external standard method(r〉0. 999 3);the average recovery was 99. 7%,97. 5,98. 8%,100. 9%,99. 1%,for galuteolin,apigenin-7-glucoside,7-methoxycoumarin,luteolin and apigenin,respectively,with RSD as 1. 8%,0. 6%,0. 5%, 1. 8% and 1. 9%,respectively. The RCF for pigenin-7-glucoside,galuteolin,7-methoxycoumarin and luteolin to apigenin was 1. 441,2. 308,1. 117,1. 490,respectively,with RSD as 0. 07%,0. 04%,0. 09% and 0. 18%,respectively. No significant difference between the quantitative results by QAMS and external standard method was observed. Conclusion It is practical to determine content of galuteolin,apigenin-7-glucoside,7-methoxycoumarin,luteolin with RCF and apigenin by using external standard method,for the deficiency and expensive of the standard reference.