Development and evaluation of bee venom topical formulation for efficient treatment of arthritis
Arthritis is a chronic, complex autoimmune disease that affects approximately 1% of the global population. Conventional therapeutic management involves usage of steroids, nonsteroidal antiinflammatory, disease modifying antirheumatic and immunosuppressant drugs. Despite the increasing number of new drugs and treatment regimes, complete long-term disease remission is not achieved for many patients and thus new therapeutic options are required (Guo et al., 2018). Bee venom (BV) therapy has been used since ancient times. According to animal experiments, BV exhibits antiarthritic, anti-inflammatory and analgesic effects attributable to the suppression of cyclo-oxygenase-2 and phospholipase A2 expression and a decrease in the levels of TNF-α, IL-1 and IL-6, nitric oxide and oxygen-reactive species. Bioactive BV compounds, such as peptides (melittin, adolapin and apamin), enzymes (phospholipase A2) and amines are also associated with these actions (Lee et al., 2014). The topical delivery is an attractive method for local treatment of inflammatory conditions like musculoskeletal disorders. Topical delivery has many advantages over the conventional oral dosage forms, especially in avoidance of various adverse effects. Having in mind that the therapeutic efficacy of a topical formulation depends on both the nature of the vehicle and the physicochemical properties of the active agent (release rate, rate and extent of drug permeation, etc.) (Özcan et al., 2009), the aim of this study was to develop an effective, stable topical gel formulation containing BV as an active agent.