Herbal treatment for urinary stones using crude aqueous extract and fractionated methanol extract of prosopis farcta cultivated in Jordan

Abstract EN

Crystallization process is the rate limiting step in urolithiasis.

Therefore, the present study chemically investigated the aqueous extract of Prosopis farcta and its effect on crystallization of calcium oxalate salts.

Many factors such as the size, number, type of calcium oxalate crystals and calcium concentration were included as markers for the crystallization process.

Results showed that the crude aqueous extract and the fractions especially ethyl acetate fraction significantly inhibit calcium oxalate crystallization in a dose-dependent pattern by reducing the crystal size.

The number of calcium oxalate monohydrate (COM) crystals that damages epithelial cells gradually decreased and completely disappeared at higher concentrations of extract in a dose-dependent fashion.

The results confirmed that Prosopis farcta extract has antiurolithic activity and has the ability to reduce crystal size as well as to activate the formation of calcium oxalate dihydrate (COD) crystals rather than calcium oxalate monohydrate (COM).

The shifting of crystallization process toward COD rather than COM and reducing the crystal size, calcium ion concentration, in addition to the diuretic action of the extract play an important role in controlling urolithiasis.