Medicinal Plants - International Journal of Phytomedicines and Related Industries

Many kinds of plants showed good biochemical activities and can be used as functional foods for several medicinal purposes. Previous results showed the high potential of applying plant extracts in calcium oxalate crystallization inhibition. This research aimed to prove the anti-crystallization and dissolution capability of calcium oxalate with root and leaf extract of Ruellia tuberosa. This study included nucleation, growth, aggregation, and dissolution assays. The crystal formation inhibition was examined by measuring the absorbance of the crystal density and evaluating the dissolution activity by weight and titrimetry assay. The results illustrated that the leaf extract had a better IC₅₀ than the root extract in three-stage crystallization with 6.34, 2.27, and 6.28 mg/mL corresponding to nucleation, growth, and aggregation assay. The highest dissolution results of calcium oxalate examined in the weight assay in leaf and root extract are 42.91% and 53.31%, respectively at 20 mg/mL in 216 hours. In titrimetry assay, the dissolution activity of root extract with the output was at 74.60%, nearly twice that of the leaves. These results revealed that R. tuberosa was a potential medicinal plant source that could be applied for kidney stone treatment.