The Potential of Gum-Based Rectal Drug Delivery in Traditional Persian Medicine as Functional Excipients

Gums are well-known representatives of the polysaccharides class and are used extensively in the pharmaceutical, food, and cosmetic industries as gelling, dissolving, emulsifying, stabilizing, and thickening agents. Plant-based gums are used in traditional Persian medicine (TPM) for rectal drug delivery as versatile natural compounds. Following the importance of using multifunctional excipients in drug delivery, this study examined the application of plant-based gums, used in TPM's rectal dosage forms, as multifunctional excipients. In TPM manuscripts, gums are referred to as "Samgh", which was applied as the search keyword in “Qarabadine-Salehi's” book, one of the primary sources of TPM's pharmaceutical manuscripts, in which rectal dosage forms containing plant-based gums were extracted and utilized for this study. By searching through TPM's manuscripts, different rectal dosage forms involving five types were found. Eleven types of gums were used in these formulations, which were searched for in terms of application as multifunctional excipients in databases. Natural gums are cost-effective, biocompatible, and universally accessible, replacing semi-synthetic and synthetic additives due to their non-irritating, tranquillizing, and economically viable properties. Gums were used to increase the viscosity and stability of the dosage forms since they had various functions from the viewpoint of TPM and contemporary medicine. They can be introduced to the pharmaceutical industry as multifunctional excipients in rectal drug delivery systems.