The Safety of Low Concentration Hypochlorous Acid as an Oral Gargle Solution and Its Anti-Microbial Effects / 대한이비인후과학회지

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: The authors aimed to evaluate the safety of low concentration hypochlorous acid as an oral gargle solution. To do this, we carried out in vitro and in vivo experiments and evaluated its efficacy by compared with normal saline and chlorhexidine gargle using throat culture before and after gargling. MATERIALS AND METHOD: The authors treated oral mucosal epithelial cell with 3.5 ppm hypochlorous acid and evaluated cytotoxicity. For evaluation of morphological change, oral mucosa specimens were obtained during surgery before 30 minutes and 2 hours after treatment with hypochlorous acid. The specimens were evaluated with light microscopy. For evaluation of efficacy, we performed oral gargle with normal saline, chlorhexidine and hypochlorous acid in 10 healthy volunteers. The throat cultures were performed before and after each gargling. Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus pneumoniae, Streptococcus pyogenes, Haemophilus influenzae, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Aspergillus fumigatus, Rhizopus oryzae were evaluated semi-quantitatively (Grade 0 to 4). RESULTS: There was no cellular toxicity in MTT assay and the morphological changes were not observed. Both chlorhexidine and hypochlorous acid showed significant decrease of microbes (chlorhexidine p=0.036, hypochlorous acid p=0.031). There was no significant differences between them (p=0.217). CONCLUSION: Low concentration hypochlorous acid is safe for the oral mucosal epithelium and has antimicrobial efficacy similar to that of chlorhexidine.