Cytotoxic effects of octenidine mouth rinse on human fibroblasts and epithelial cells – an in vitro study

Abstract

Objectives: This study compared the cytotoxicity of a new octenidine mouth rinse (MR) against gingival fibroblasts and epithelial cells with different established MRs. Methods: The following MRs were used: Octenidol (OCT), Chlorhexidine 0.2% (CHX), Listerine (LIS), Meridol (MER), Betaisodona (BET); and control (medium only). Human primary gingiva fibroblasts and human primary nasal epithelial cells were cultivated in cell-specific media (2 × 10⁵ cells/ml) and treated with MR for 1, 5, and 15 min. Each test was performed 12 times. Metabolism activity was measured using a cytotoxicity assay. A cellometer analyzed cell viability, cell number, and cell diameter. The data were analyzed by two-way analysis of variance with subsequent Dunnett’s test and additional t-tests. Results: The cytotoxic effects of all MRs on fibroblasts and epithelial cells compared to the control depended on the contact time (p < 0.001). OCT and BET showed less influence on cell metabolism in fibroblasts than other MRs. OCT also demonstrated comparable but not significant results in epithelial cells (p > 0.005). Cell numbers of both cell types at all contact times revealed that OCT showed a less negative effect (p > 0.005), especially for epithelial cells compared to CHX after 15 min (p < 0.005). OCT and BET showed the best results for viability in fibroblasts (p > 0.005), but MER showed less influence than OCT in epithelial cells (p < 0.005). Conclusions: OCT is a potential alternative to CHX regarding cytotoxicity because of its lower cell-toxic effect against fibroblasts and epithelial cells.

• Mouth rinse
• cytotoxicity
• oral cells

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank G. Grzyb and M. Hoch for supporting us with the laboratory analyses.

Declaration of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interests.

Supplementary material available online