International Journal of Ethnobiology & Ethnomedicine-Efficacy of herbal mouthwashes compared to chlorhexidine- A Systematic Review

Aim: To evaluate the efficacy of herbal mouthwashes compared to chlorhexidine in gingivitis. Materials and Methods: The electronic search strategy included the following databases: PubMed, Medline, Science Direct, Google Scholar, and Cochrane Central. Hand search from relevant journals was also carried out until the month of August 2014. Randomized control trials and clinical trials with minimum 10 days follow up were included. Case reports, reviews, in vitro studies were excluded from the search. Quality assessment of the trials was done. Results: 33 articles from PubMed search was found relevant according to the inclusion criteria. After full text assessment, 14 original articles were included. An addition of 3 articles was included from other databases. A final of 17 articles have been used for detailed evaluation in this systematic review. 14 of these articles show similar efficacy of the respective mouthwashes used. Triphala showed statistically better results than chlorhexidine. Two studies however showed that chlorhexidine is statistically better than the respective herbal preparation used. Conclusion: Herbal mouthwashes could be used as an alternative to chlorhexidine to prevent or treat plaque induced gingivitis.