Efficacy of alcohol containing and alcohol-free chlorhexidine mouth rinse in reducing periodontal disease during prophylactic treatment

Abstract

Chlorhexidine has been established as the gold standard against which new chemical plaque control agents are tested (Jones, 1997). The addition of alcohol in a chlorhexidine mouthwash had been widely used, however the comparative efficacy of alcohol free chlorhexidine mouthwash had not fully been explored in this study, two chlorhexidine mouthwash preparations were tested to evaluate their comparative efficacy in the treatment of periodontal disease. Aims: To assess the efficacy of alcohol-free chlorhexidine mouth wash in comparison to alcohol containing chlorhexidine mouth wash. Objectives: To determine pre- and post- operative clinical parameters and microbial load in the management of patients with chronic periodontitis. Methodology: A double blinded randomised control trial was conducted. Patients diagnosed with active chronic periodontitis were included in the study and randomised to either a test (chlorhexidine without alcohol) or control group (chlorhexidine with alcohol). A total of 50 patients were selected for the study. Results: The Wilcoxon Signed Rank test was used to test the difference between the pre-post pair per clinical indicator and Bana-Zyme. The differences between before and after treatment per indicator were significant at P<0.001 for respectively Paroex and Peridex. These values demonstrated the difference between the clinical parameters taken before the treatment and six weeks post treatment. Conclusion: Both mouth wash solutions with and without alcohol had proven to reduce the microbial load as shown by the BANA-Zyme test, with the alcohol containing solution having been more effective.