Comparison of the in vitro effect of Cannabis sativa Essential Oil with Albendazole on Protoscolices of Hydatid Cyst

Echinococcosis garnulosus is a major zoonotic disease, and surgery is the best treatment for it. So far, several chemical scolicidals have been used to prevent protoscolices leakage during surgery, but due to their adverse effects were not well-received. Therefore, using medicinal plants or compounds driven from them as alternatives were taken into consideration. This study was conducted to compare the in vitro effect of Cannabis sativa essential oil with albendazole on protoscolices of hydatid cyst.

In this descriptive-analytic study, essential oil of C. sativa was prepared from aerial parts of the plant in flowering season in university of Camerino, Italy, and Gas chromatography – mass spectrometry (GC-MS) analysis was performed. Protoscolices were extracted from the livers infected with hydatid cyst and were exposed to different concentrations of C. sativa (1, 2, 5 and 10 μg/ml) for 10, 30, 60 and 120 minutes. The viability of protoscolices was measured by 0.1% eosin staining. Albendazole was used as a standard medicinal drug.

Essential oil of C. sativa at all tested concentrations led to significant mortality in protoscolices which showed a direct relation with increase in concentration (P<0.05). The highest concentration of albendazole after 2 h led to 13.24% mortality rate while, this amount with C. sativa essential oil at 2µg/ml reached to 20.9%, and at 10µg/ml reached to 26.08%.

This study showed that C. sativa essential oil has promising scolicidal effect compared to albendazole and can be suggested as a natural protoscolicidal agent.