Original Research Article (Experimental): Design and Development of Unani Emulgel for Vitiligo

"Background: Vitiligo is not only a cosmetic problem, but also a social and psychological problemworldwide with the prevalence rate being highest in India. Treatment is unsatisfactory in WesternSystem of Medicine. Unani System of Medicine (USM) possesses various drugs to treat vitiligo inboth topical and oral dosage forms. Safoof-e-Bars (SB) is an important powdered dosage form usedwidely to treat vitiligo, internally as Zulal. Externally as Sufl (Sediment remained after decanting thesoaked drug) is used. Babchi, a component of SB, is reported to contain psoralen, an importanttherapeutically active compounds for treating vitiligo. But as Psoralen e the active marker compound is very slightly soluble in water, so only negligible amount of it comes in zulal and most ofthe amount remains in sufl. That might be the reason for local application of sufl as recommendedby Hakeems. But clinically it is observed that application of sufl is not followed by most of thepatients, due to side effects associated with its application on skin.Objective: The present study is designed to convert Safoof-e-Bars into a more convenient and appealingnewly evolved dosage form ‘emulgel’ of same composition as of SB, so that it can be used by the patientseasily without any side effects.Materials & methods: Various batches of emulgel were prepared as preliminary batches and final batchesusing hydro-alcoholic extract of SB and different excipients in different concentrations. Preliminarybatches were formed for selecting composition and concentration of extract and excipients for finalbatches. Total eight batches (F1eF8) were prepared as final batches. Among these eight batches, batch F7was selected as final batch, which was further evaluated on various parameters. Comparative quantitative analysis was done in Zulal, Hydro-alcoholic extract of SB and emulgel using HPLC.Results: Optimized emulgel showed good result in physicochemical parameters. Highest percentage ofpsoralen was found in SB extract while lowest percentage was found in zulal. No growth of yeast andmould, and viable aerobic were found in emulgel on microbiological analysis. Emulgel was found to bestable for 3 months.Conclusion: Newly developed emulgel may be recommended with zulal instead of traditionally used suflwith zulal. In future emulgel will provide a solution for topical delivery of hydrophobic drugs and moreconvenient dosage form to apply locally."