Study of Inhibitory effect of alcoholic and aqueous extract of Scrophularia striata (tashne dari) on candida albicans in vitro

Candidiasis is one of the most common opportunistic fungal diseases in humans, candida vaginitis being the most important fungal disease in women. Traditionally, different plant extracts are used in Western Iran for treatment of vaginal infections. This study aims to evaluate the inhibitory effects of aqueous and alcoholic extracts of Scrophularia striata on Candida albicans isolated from patients with vaginitis.

Scrophularia striata plants collected from the Zagross Mountains were dried in shade. Aqueous and alcoholic extracts of Scrophularia striata were prepared by rotary evaluation. Inhibitory effect of extracts was studied by disk diffusion and embedding sink diffusion.

This experiment indicated that no concentration of the alcoholic extract of Scrophularia striata had an inhibitory effect on candida albicans but the aqueous extract in maximum concentrations of 100 mg/ml had some inhibitory effect on this fungus.

Since people in Western Iran use this plant for treatment of infections, we expected these extracts to have significant inhibitory effect on candida albicans but the result was contrary to our expectations. Keywords: Scrophularia striata, Aqueous extracts, Alcoholic extract, Inhibitory effect, Candida albicans.