evaluation of a persian natural topical medicine based on sesame oil on mild-to-moderate outpatient coronavirus disease-19 patients: a randomized triple-blind placebo-controlled clinical trial

Sesame oil (so) or so-called tahini has been traditionally used for management of various conditions including burns and wounds and relief of pain, fever, and inflammation n persian medicine. it poses anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and anti-carcinogenic activities; then it could be used in various inflammatory conditions. a triple-blind randomized placebo-controlled clinical trial was carried out to examine the efficacy of a persian natural topical medicine based on sesame oil in outpatients suffering mild and moderate coronavirus disease-19 (covid-19). the participants were 101 covid-19 patients who met the inclusion criteria. the participants were allocated randomly to treatment (n = 51) group who received topical sesame oil formulation five times daily on the chest and back skin for 1 week or the placebo (n = 50) group. the symptoms were examined at admittance and over a follow-up course and the results were compared in the two groups after 3 and 7 days. after three days, fever (7.84 vs. 20.41%, p=0.05), chills (3.92 vs. 16.33%, p=0.03), cough (severe 0 vs. 8.6, intermediate 50.98 vs. 65.31%, p=0.007) and headache (mild 7.84 vs. 30.61, moderate 5.88 vs. 0, p=0.004) had a significant lower prevalence in the treatment group. however, after 7 days, all symptoms had insignificant difference between two groups (p>0.05). no significant adverse reaction reported in both groups. as the results indicated, topical formulation consisting of sesame oil and cow butter, rubbing on the chest and back of the mild-to-moderate covid-19 patients five times daily could significantly improve cough, fever, chills and headache, in 3 days. but it could not be effective on final outcome of the patients. more works covering a larger sample size are needed.