efficacy of aloe vera cream in the treatment of paederus dermatitis in mice

background : dermatitis caused by paederus beetle involves many people around the world, especially iran. the symptoms include redness, itching and severe irritation. this study evaluated the effectiveness of the aloe vera cream on the treatment of dermatitis caused by paederus beetles. methods: forty male 6–8 weeks balb/c mice were randomly divided into four groups of 10 mice. after removing the mice’s back hair, the backs of mice were marked by a circle  with a  diameter of 3 mm. the paederus beetles were collected from babol in mazandaran province, northern iran and transferred to the animal lab of aja university of medical sciences, tehran, iran. the end of abdominal segment paederus was cut with scissors and hemolymph content was pushed by forceps on the circle. only hemolymph of one paederus applied to the back of each mouse. groups 1, 2, 3 and 4 were treated with the base (vehicle), dexamethasone 0.1%, aloe vera 0.5% and aloe vera 2% creams respectively. after 2 days, dermatitis appeared. then the mentioned creams were applied on the mice once a day. the wound area was measured every day. dermatitis surface area under curve (auc) of each mouse was cal­culated for 17 days after induction of dermatitis. statistical analysis of anova was used. results: application of aloe vera 0.5% and 2% significantly reduced the healing duration and dermatitis area in comparison with the vehicle and dexamethasone cream (p< 0.05). but dexamethasone had no significant effect on the healing of dermatitis as compared to vehicle. conclusion: aloe vera may clinically effective in the treatment of paederus dermatitis.