Author(s) :

Jane Hong, Francis Hong, Jaehee Kim, Michelle Tan, Brooke Yu, Rebecca Tang.

Volume/Issue :

Abstract :

Oral infection is a prevalent condition that affects billions of individuals globally. This leads countries to incur significant expenses to treat oral infections. One of the most commonly used antiseptics, chlorhexidine gluconate, is a costly treatment. To assess this situation, we focused on finding a proxy for chlorhexidine gluconate under oral application. We hypothesized that a certain salt concentration would have a similar level of antiseptic effects as chlorhexidine gluconate. To compare the antiseptic properties of the chlorhexidine gluconate to different salt concentrations, we first collected the bacteria from our teeth. Then, we grew the bacterial cultures in an incubator. After bacterial colonies formed, we collected them and mixed them in water to make a bacterial solution. Then, we suspended the solution in another Petri dish and placed sterile disks that had been soaked in chlorhexidine gluconate and salt solutions. We observed the diameter of the zone of inhibition of each sterile disk as a measure of antiseptic effectiveness. Results showed that a 10% salt concentration solution produced similar effects to chlorhexidine gluconate. This result suggests that salt can be a potential alternative to chlorhexidine gluconate, as it is cost-effective, naturally occurring, and capable of producing similar effects.