Comparative evaluation of antimicrobial activity of miswak, propolis, sodium hypochlorite and saline as root canal irrigants by microbial culturing and quantification in chronically exposed primary teeth

Abstract

Introduction One of the essential factors for successful root canal therapy is elimination of bacterial contaminants using an effective root canal chemical irrigant such as sodium hypochlorite which inherently possesses certain disadvantages like irritation to periapical tissues, staining of the instruments, burning of surrounding tissues etc. The aim of the study was to explore newer irrigant agents which would probably be as effective or more and at the same time less irritating to the tissues than sodium hypochlorite. Our search included two such agents, propolis and miswak.Methods The study was performed on 40 infected primary teeth (20 male and 20 female patients). The subjects were divided into 4 groups of 10 children. Group 1 received 3% sodium hypochlorite as irrigating solution, group 2 received 12.5% alcoholic extract of miswak, group 3 received 11% alcoholic extract of propolis and group 4, 0.9% saline. We used the antimicrobial activity of sodium hypochlorite as gold standard for comparing the activities of both propolis and miswak. We collected pre-and postirrigation samples using sterile paper points. Samples were cultured on tryptose soya agar at a temperature of 37 o C for 24-48 hours. The colonies were counted with a digital colony counter. For the statistical analysis, we used the unpaired t test at level of significance 0.05 and the ANOVA test for analysis of variance.Results The differences in pre-and post-irrigation values were calculated for each group, the greatest difference being seen in group 1 (95.549%) followed by group 2 (89.794%), group 3 (34.735%) and group 4 (28.087%). When comparing the results between groups, there was no statistically significant difference between groups 3 and 4.Conclusions The statistically analyzed results suggested that miswak could be a good natural substitute to sodium hypochlorite, while propolis showed results comparable to those of the negative control.

Comparative Evaluation of Antimicrobial Efficacy of Neem, Miswak, Propolis, and Sodium Hypochlorite against Enterococcus faecalis using EndoVac

“…This effect of propolis is possibly due to the flavonoids and esters of phenolic acids. 21 But it does not correlate with several other studies of Shingare and Chaugule, 1 Hedge and Kesaria, 22 and Mathew et al, 23 where it has been stated that propolis has minimal antibacterial effect against E. faecalis. The antimicrobial activity of neem was comparable to propolis and is considered to be due to its antiadherence activity by altering bacterial adhesion and their ability to colonize.…”

“…1 Propolis (bee glue) is a resinous brown material collected by bees chiefly from plants like poplar and coniferous trees or clusia flowers. Flavonoids, the main constituent of propolis, are the active ingredient, with most of its properties like antioxidant, antimicrobial, anticancer, and anti-inflammatory.…”

“…Infections in endodontics are polymicrobial in nature, but it is dominated by obligate anaerobic bacteria. 1 The etiology of periradicular lesions after root canal treatment is the persistence of Enterococcus faecalis (24-77% cases). 2 This bacterium may survive in the root canal as a single microbe or as a major component of the flora.…”

Disruption of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus protein synthesis by tannins

“…17 Other studies have also proved that tannins have antimicrobial activity against S. aureus 18 and oral microbiota. 19 The highly probable biochemical compounds in tannins that may be responsible for inhibiting and killing MRSA might have possessed lower MIC and MBC values.…”

Root Canal Irrigants in Primary Teeth

“…Comparative evaluation of antimicrobial activity of miswak, propolis, sodium hypochlorite and saline as root canal irrigants by microbial culturing and quantification in chronically exposed primary teeth was done showed that results of propolis was comparable to those of the negative control. 40 An in vivo randomized trial was conducted where root canals were irrigated using either 2% CHX, 4% calcium hydroxide or DMSO) extract of propolis with normal saline as the control irrigant. Which showed a significant decrease in mean aerobic colony forming units count in all the groups, however CHX was superior.…”