Cancer is an emerging public health problem in sub-Saharan Africa. Several medicinal plants are used by traditional healers to treat tumors. In Togo, there are no recorded data for these plants but traditional healers claim to cure tumors with some success. So, information on medicinal plants used to cure human tumors and cancer could be of great importance for their widespread use and scientific validation. e present ethnopharmacological survey aims to record information on antitumor plants in central and Kara regions of Togo. Semistructured validated questionnaires were administered to fifty-seven traditional healers specialized in tumor management in 7 prefectures of Togo. Good practices and know-how were recorded. Quantitative ethnobotanical tools were used to analyze and summarize the data collected. 85 recipes of medicinal plants for tumors management are provided. In the local dialect, 78.95% of traditional healers do not have a clear tumor designation and 29.90% find that the causes of tumors remain unknown. According to 48.78% of traditional healers, the diagnosis of tumors in patients is made in the hospital. e types of tumors frequently treated are those of the breast (43.75%) and the lung (16.67%). e seventy listed medicinal plants belong to thirty-nine families, the most represented being Rubiaceae (17.95%), Caesalpiniaceae (12.82%), Fabaceae (10.26%), and Annonaceae (7.69%). e ten most cited species were Xylopia aethiopica, Aframomum melegueta, Khaya senegalensis, Parkia biglobosa, Piliostigma thonningii, Blighia sapida, Vitellaria paradoxa, Adansonia digitata, Annona muricata, and Parinari curatellifolia. Most of the recipes are prepared as decoction (40%) and administered orally (54.12%). Both regions of our study have a wealth of medicinal plants, and traditional healers would use their local knowledge in the management of various tumors and chronic wounds.
Parkia biglobosa is one of the main medicinal plants used in traditional medicine to treat cardiovascular diseases in Africa. We investigated cardioprotective effects of stem bark hydro-alcoholic extract (HAE) of P. biglobosa in isoproterenol (ISO) induced myocardial infarction (MI). Four groups of five Wistar rats of each were used. Group I, control group, received per os (p.o) saline solution (5ml kg-1 b.w.) as vehicle daily for 15 days and was injected subcutaneously with the vehicle (5ml kg-1 b.w.) at an interval of 24 hours, on day 14 and 15. Group II referred to as infarcted rats, received vehicle p.o and was injected subcutaneously with isoproterenol (125 mg kg-1 b.w.) as in group I. Groups III and IV were pre-treated p.o with HAE (90 and 60 mg kg-1 b.w. respectively) daily for 15 days and was injected subcutaneously Isoproterenol (125 mg kg-1 b.w.). ISO has induced MI, characterized by significant increased (p <0.001) of MDA, biochemical alterations, heart hypertrophy and histological changes in infarcted rats. HAE, prevented significantly (p <0.001) induction of all these anomalies in pre-treated rats. These results suggested cardioprotective effects of P.biglobosa against ISO induced MI.
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