Abstract:
Mouthwashes are often used by people as they are prescribed by the
dentistry, with the intention of prevention and treatment of several oral
conditions. Many of commercially available mouthwashes claim to have
antimicrobial properties. This in vitro study mainly aims to determine the
antimicrobial efficacy of commercially available mouthwashes. Four
commercially available mouthwashes including an Ayurvedic mouthwash
were included in the study. The antimicrobial efficacies of selected
mouthwashes were tested against five selected microorganisms namely,
Staphylococcus aureus ATCC 25923, Escherichia coli ATCC 25922,
Pseudomonas aeruginosa ATCC 27853, Streptococcus pyogenes and
Candida albicans using agar well diffusion method and disc diffusion
method. The experiments were replicated thrice. A validation test was done
to determine whether there is an antimicrobial effect of the mouthwashes.
The results obtained from the Tukey test indicated that, the highest
effectiveness was shown by mouthwash 1 against Candida albicans in both
disc and well diffusion methods (average inhibition zone diameter of 20.67
mm in both cases) The second highest effectiveness was shown by the
mouthwash 1 against Streptococcus pyogenes and the third highest
effectiveness was showed by the mouthwash 1 against Escherichia coli.
Mouthwash 1 contained chlorohexidine gluconate as the active
antimicrobial component. Between the two non-herbal mouthwashes, the
least effectiveness was showed by the mouthwash 2 against Pseudomonas
aeruginosa. It contained chlorohexidine-digluconate as the active
ingredient. The Herbal and Ayurvedic mouthwashes didn’t show
antimicrobial properties.