Cutaneous leishmaniasis is a common disease in Iraq, especially in the central part of the country. Several treatments have been suggested for this disease but none is completely effective and without side effects. Several researches are focused on the development of alternative treatments. The present work aimed to evaluate the efficacy of ultra violet light, laser lights, and Nigella sativa alcoholic extract on the viability of Leishmaniatropicapromastigote in vitro.
The study included exposure Leishmaniatropicapromastigote stage in vitro cultured to 2, 4, 6, 8 minutes of ultra violet light and laser lights, also exposure to 40, 50, 60, 70 mg/ml concentrations of Nigella sativa alcoholic extract, then evaluated their effectson replication number and parasiticidal rate of parasite.
It was found that there was significant decrease at level(p≤0.05) in replication number of Leishmaniatropicapromastigotes groups which exposed to 40, 50, 60, 70 mg/ml of alcoholic extract of Nigella sativa, while there was significant decrease at level(p≤0.05) in replication number of groups exposed to 6, 8 minute of laser helium neon light and in groups exposed to 4, 6, 8 minute of laser diode light, and there was no significant decrease at level(p≥0.05) in replication number of groups exposed to 2, 4, 6, 8 minute of ultra violet light in comparison with control groups on the day 5 of incubation. There was increased in parasiticidal rate of Leishmaniatropicapromastigote stage with increasing the time and the concentration of exposure to radiation lights and the alcoholic extract, it was 0%, 25%, 47%, 57% on 2min,40mg/ml respectively and reached to 4%, 68%, 86%, 90% on 8min,70mg/ml respectively under exposure to ultra violet light, laser helium neon light, laser diode light and Nigella sativa of alcoholic extract on the day 5 of incubation.
It can be concluded that the efficacy of Nigella sativa alcoholic extract was significantly higher than that of ultra violet light, laser helium neon light, laser diode light in decreasing the replication number, and increasing the parasiticidal rate of Leishmaniatropicapromastigote stage.