Anthelmintic effects of pumpkin (Cucurbita moschata) seed extract on Ascaris suum in vitro

Abstract

Ganestya S, Djumarga S, Utari CRS. 2012. Anthelmintic effects of pumpkin (Cucurbita moschata) seed extract on Ascaris suum in vitro. Biofarmasi 10: 1-6. The aim of this research was to determine the effect of pumpkin seed extract towards the Lethal Death Time of Ascaris suum Goeze in vitro. The type of this research was an quasi-experiment using a post-test only controlled group design. The subject of this research was the actively motile adult Ascaris suum Goeze. A purposive sampling technique was used to collect the samples by considering the length of each worm without noticing the sex of worm. The subjects were divided into four groups, each group consisted of 10 worms, with 5 times replication. Physiological saline solution and pyrantel pamoate 0.236% were used as the negative and positive control groups, respectively, while the pumpkin seed extracts used for the treatment groups were at the concentrations of 54.5% and 70.5%. The observation and checking towards the dead worm were performed once an hour. The data obtained were analyzed by using a Kruskal-Wallis test, continued with Mann-Whitney and Spearman Correlation tests. The Lethal Death Time of A. suum by pumpkin seed extracts at a concentration of 54.5% was 11 hour 48 minutes, while at a concentration of 70.5%, the Lethal Death Time was 7 hours 48 minutes. The result of Kruskal-Wallis test showed a significant difference among all of the groups (p<0.05). A significant difference was also shown at every group by Mann-Whitney test (p<0.05). Meanwhile, the result of Spearman correlation test showed a significant negative correlation between the concentration of pumpkin seed extract and the Lethal Death Time as p<0.05 and coefficient correlation was -0.950. Pumpkin seed extract showed an anthelmintic effect against A. suum in vitro.