Study of the antimicrobial efficiency of some root canal medicaments

ABSTRACT

Four types of intra-canal medicaments were used in this study to evaluate their antibacterial efficiency against streptococcus viridians, staphylococcus aurous, E. coli and Candida albicans, These medicaments were divided into 1] Fixative; form cresol in three concentrations, full concentration of Buckley's formula, 1/5 and 1/10 concentrations of the formula; and glutaraldehyde in five concentrations 19% 3% 3% 2% and1% 2] Irrigating solutions; hydrogen peroxide in 10 and 3 volumes' and sodium hypochlorite solution in 5% concentration. These following conclusions could be abstained from this work 1] Formocresol in Buckley's formula have the widest inhibition zone in all microorganisms used. 2] The second zone of inhibition was produced by sodium hypochlorite 5% solution. 3] Glutaraldehyde solution even in 19% concentration is not a powerful antimicrobial agent against the micro-organisms tested in this study. Chemical treatment of the pulp canal spaces has logn been practiced in dentistry. The original agents were sodium hypochlorite solution in 5% concentration, and formocresol in the concentration formulated by Buckley. During the past fifteen years a number of studies have indicated that the negative results of formocresol could be due to the excessively high concentration of the Buckley's formula. These studies have shown that a one - fifth dilution of Buckley's formula appears biologically as effective as the full strength formocresol preparation and allows for a faster recovery of the cells. The destructive chemical reactions of protein, nucleic acid, and carbohydrates with formaldehyde have been reported. They concluded that formocresol when contacting vital tissues might irreversibly damage biologically active proteins and enzymes, genetic materials, membranes and elements of the connective tissue. Because of these problems, recent studies have attempted to find alternative drugs which would be more biologically compatible than formocresol. One such drug that has been suggested and received most attention is glutaraldehyde."S-Gravenmade"75[15] reported that glutaraldehyde has better fixing and disinfecting properties, and as a larger molecule, has less tendency to diffuse out of the root canal into the periodical region in pulpotony procedures.Despite claims that glutaraldehyde might be a better agent than formocresol biologically, bateriologic evaluation of these drugs in different concentrations has not been studied. In this investigation attempts to study the antimicrobial ability of different concentrations of formocresol and glutaraldehyde, and two widely used irrigating solutions are reported