Phytochemical and Pharmacological Screening of Natural Oils to Study Their Synergistic Activity with Aceclofenac

Background: Drug aceclofenac is commonly used as an analgesics both topically and orally. Though it has diverse side effects related to oral delivery. Aim of recent work is to design and optimize a transdermal gel loaded with penetration enhancer from various natural sources so as to promote the delivery via skin. Methods: Carbopol was used as a gelling agent. Other ingredients used include essential oil from Allium sativum, Zingiber officinale, Triethanolamine, tween 80 etc. For animal studies Albino Wistar rats were employed in which analgesic as well as anti-inflammatory activity of Aceclofenac were evaluated. Result: All the prepared Emulgel were good in appearance and viscous in nature. The pH of the Emulgel from both essential oils ranged between 5.00-7.00. The spreading coefficient ranged between 19.00 - 28.00 gm.cm/sec for FA1-FA9 and between 17-26.4 gm.cm/sec for FZ1-FZ9. All the formulations showed optimum viscosity. The drug release percent of Emulgel FA1-FA9 ranged between 75.0-89.0% and 80-90 for FZ1-FZ9. In in-vivo studies comparable analgesic and anti-inflammatory activity were found. As a concluding statement we can say that essential oil from both Allium sativum and Zingiber officinale can act as a potential candidate for enhancement of drug delivery through skin.