Intra-Ocular Pressure (IOP) Lowering Activity Of Polyherbal Formulation In Experimental Models Of Glaucoma

1. SK Gupta¹
2. Galpalli Niranjan D¹
3. Sushma Srivastava¹
4. SS Agrawal¹
5. Rohit Saxena²

¹Delhi Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences & Research, New Delhi, India
²Dr. Rajendra Prasad Centre for Ophthalmic Sciences, AIIMS, New Delhi, India

Purpose: There is continuous search for newer safe and effective drugs for the management of open-angle glaucoma as presently available drugs are costly and their long term use causes ocular and systemic side effects. The present study is an attempt to evaluate the efficacy and safety of a Polyherbal (PH) formulation consisting of Vitis vinifera(1%), Areca catechu(0.5%) and Berberis aristata (2%), It possesses antioxidant, cholinergic, nitricoxide scavenging and TNF-alpha inhibiting activities. The plants have been used in traditional system of medicine.

Methods: IOP lowering activity was evaluated in normotensive, waterloaded (water@70 ml/kg b.wt.), and steroid (1%prednisolone) induced glaucomatous rabbits (weight was about 1.5kg for steroid model and 2-2.5kg for other models) by instilling PH eyedrops in one eye and vehicle in contralateral eye. IOP was measured at regular intervals.

Results: Peak IOP lowering by PH eyedrops was 29.19% compared to 18.23, 20.00, 19.32 and 22.56% reduction respectively with pilocarpine, timolol, dorzolamide and latanoprost marketed eyedrops in normotensive rabbits.
PH eyedrops showed 43.03% decrease in IOP in waterloading model which was comparable with all four standard drugs. In steroid model 35.86% IOP reduction was seen which was more than the reduction shown by four standard drugs.

Conclusion: The polyherbal eyedrops showed significant IOP lowering activity in various experimental models of glaucoma which was comparable with currently available marketed drugs. These results indicate that the PH formulation has potential of being used for management of glaucoma in rats.
Acknowledgement: Financial assistance from Dept of Science & Technology under DPRP is gratefully acknowledged.