Pharmacological evaluation and formulation design of lavender volatile oil cream for the treatment of chronic prostatitis: Mechanistic insights into therapeutic efficacy

This study optimized the formulation of lavender volatile oil cream (LVOC) through single factor experiments and response surface methodology, and investigated the effects of emulsifiers, oil phase components, and moisturizers on the physical properties of the cream. The optimized formula contains 2.00 % lavender volatile oil, 6.00 % liquid paraffin, 7.57 % octadecanol, 10.00 % Vaseline, 4.89 % glycerol, and 1.34 % sodium dodecyl sulfate. The resulting cream has a uniform texture, good stability, and stable active ingredient content. Physical and chemical property analysis shows that the cream has a suitable particle size (680.40 nm) and low polydispersity coefficient (PDI) (0.15), a pH (5.97) that meets the standards for skin application, and excellent mechanical stability in rheological properties. In addition, retention experiments have confirmed that LVOC can significantly reduce the loss of volatile oil (p < 0.01). In the chronic prostatitis (CP) rat model, LVOC significantly reduced the inflammatory response by downregulating the expression of cyclooxygenase-2 (COX2), phosphorylated protein kinase B (p-AKT), phosphorylated nuclear factor kappa B p65 subunit (p-p65), and phosphorylated phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (p-PI3K) proteins. Molecular docking analysis further revealed that the main active ingredients of LVOC, such as linalool and linalool acetate, may exert therapeutic effects through the PI3K-AKT/Nuclear Factor Kappa B (NF-κB) signaling pathway. This study provides a scientific basis for the development of LVOC formulations and verifies its potential application value in CP treatment.