The comparative in vitro killing activity of tea tree oil versus permethrin on Demodex folliculorum of rosacea patients

Abstract

Background Demodex mites have been implicated in several cutaneous disorders compelling the research efforts for effective anti‐Demodex therapy. Objective Compare the survival time (ST) of Demodex folliculorum exposed to six different concentrations of tea tree oil (TTO) versus a positive control (permethrin 5%) and a negative control (immersion oil) group. Materials and methods The wastes of rosacea patients’ standardized superficial skin biopsy samples were recruited for the trial. The primary outcome measure of this study was the survival time, defined as the period between the exposure of study agents to the complete cessation of Demodex movements. Results All differences between the mean survival times of 2.5% (54.0 ± 6.1), 5% (39.0 ± 3.9), 10% (22.0 ± 2.5), 25% (13.0 ± 2.5), 50% (7.8 ± 0.6), and 100% TTO (3.3 ± 1.3) were significant (p < 0.05). The ST of the negative control group was 196.0 ± 23.6 min. The ST of permethrin 5% was 12.5 ± 1.9 that did not show a statistically significant difference from the ST of TTO 25% (p = 0.628). Conclusion The survival times of the six different TTO groups confirmed a dose‐related pattern, all of which had survival times shorter than the negative control (immersion oil). TTO 25% had comparable efficacy to the positive control agent (permethrin 5%).

Comparison of in vitro Killing Effect of N, N-Diethyl-Meta-Toluamide (DEET) versus Permethrin on Demodex folliculorum

“…A previous study showed the mean ST of Demodex mites in permethrin 5% was 12.5 ± 1.9 min, while the mean ST in permethrin 1% was 47.2 ±12.3 min (in this trial) which led to the conclusion that permethrin has a dose-related acaricidal effect. 27 …”

Antiparasitic Activity of Tea Tree Oil (TTO) and Its Components against Medically Important Ectoparasites: A Systematic Review

“…Acaricidal effect of TTO and its components against mites. Fifty-five studies targeted mites, which include Demodex mites (n = 44) [52,56,58,59,[61][62][63][64][69][70][71][72][73][74][75][76][77][78][79]81,82,85,[87][88][89][90][91][92][93][94][97][98][99][100][101][102][107][108][109]112,114,117,120,121], scabies mites (n = 5) [57,86,113,118,119], and house dust mites (n = 6) (Tables 1-5)…”

“…Among 44 studies involving Demodex mites, six were in vitro studies [64,70,71,100,112,114], two studies followed a mixed in vitro/clinical approach [81,97], and 36 were clinical studies (14 RCTs [56,62,63,72,74,77,85,88,92,93,107,108,120,121] and 22 non-RCTs [52,58,59,61,69,73,75,76,78,79,82,87,[89][90][91]94,98,99,101,102,109,117]) (Tables 1 and 2).…”

“…The in vitro studies (n = 8) investigating the acaricidal activity of TTO and its components against Demodex mites are presented in Table 1. The tested interventions were TTO (2.5-100%) [64,71,97,114], T4O (terpinen-4-ol, 4%) [100], TTO (2-100%) with T4O (0.5-100%) [70,112], and T4O (4-100%) with γ-terpinene (25-100%), α -terpinene (10-100%), α-terpineol (10-100%), and 1,8-cineole (10-100%) [81]. The outcome variable evaluated in these studies was mite survival time (MST), with studies reporting either the mean [64,70,71,81,97,100] or the median MTS [112,114].…”

“…The tested interventions were TTO (2.5-100%) [64,71,97,114], T4O (terpinen-4-ol, 4%) [100], TTO (2-100%) with T4O (0.5-100%) [70,112], and T4O (4-100%) with γ-terpinene (25-100%), α -terpinene (10-100%), α-terpineol (10-100%), and 1,8-cineole (10-100%) [81]. The outcome variable evaluated in these studies was mite survival time (MST), with studies reporting either the mean [64,70,71,81,97,100] or the median MTS [112,114]. The studies demonstrated that TTO (100%) and T4O (100%) were effective in killing the mites within 3-5 min (mean) [64,71,81,97,100] and 9-10 min (median) [112,114] of their applications.…”