Preclinical Studies with Digitalis Lanata: A Bibliographic Review

Abstract

Popular knowledge has always served as a guide for scientific medical study. For over 200 years, the plant known as foxglove has contributed to the treatment of cardiac pathologies. This plant contains more than 80 cardenolide compounds, with digitalis glycosides being the main ones. Even with unquestionable benefits, its use has always been surrounded by care due to its high toxicity, even at low concentrations, requiring researchers to carry out preclinical studies to prove safe doses. In this sense, the present work aims to carry out a bibliographical review in order to compile works that present pre-clinical studies using the active principal digoxin, seeking to understand the procedures carried out by the researchers and the results obtained in their studies. This is a literature review article whose research was carried out in August 2021 and covered the areas of botany, pharmacognosy, biology and pharmaceutical sciences. Databases such as SciELO, PubMed and Academic Google were used, which provided more than 28,000 works. After passing the inclusion and exclusion criteria, four articles were selected, summarized, and compared. Of these, two studies presented the assessment of digoxin in cardiac pathologies, with results confirming the dosages and treatment times previously stipulated for the drug. The other two selected works present new perspectives for the use of drugs already available on the market containing digoxin for the treatment of visceral leishmaniasis and for fighting inflammation in the liver and cancer, respectively. Thus, the highlighted works demonstrate that the use of animal models to carry out tests with digoxin helps in studies to prove the drug’s safety and efficacy in cardiac pathologies. On the other hand, they also significantly contribute to the medical profession, patients, and the pharmaceutical industry by increasing the possibility of treating other already known pathologies, with a focus on improving existing treatments.