Evaluation of Anti-inflammatory Effect of Oral Licorice in Comparison with Chlorhexidine in Population with Gingivitis: A Double Blind Clinical Trial Study

Background : Chronic gingivitis is the most pervasive gingival diseases that the main cause of it is microbe plaque.The best way to remove microbe plaque is mechanical methods.Chemical methods are supplementary to mechanical ones.Chlorhexidine is one of these ways but it has harmful effects.As in the past plants and herbs were very useful, nowadays they are used significantly.The present study aims at comparing the anti-inflammatory effect of two mouthwashes of licorice and chlorhexidine in patients with plaque-induced gingivitis.Methods and materials: This study is done through double blind clinical trial.In which 75 participants who had gingival inflammation and were not sensitive to herbal mixtures with the age range of 20-40 were selected and randomly put in 3 groups of 25 people.The first group received licorice mouthwash 1%, The second group chlorhexidine 0.2% and the third group were under placebo.For data gathering a checklist was used before and after the experiment and the data were analysed with spss 22 through Kruskal-Wallis and repeated measures ANOVA and Friedman.Results: In investigating the plaque index in the first week of the study with licorice mouthwash there was no significant correlation with placebo but in the third week the correlation became significant.The study of gingival index between these two mouthwashes were reported significant in the first and third week.Comparing licorice and chlorhexidine in the first and third week there was no correlation in plaque and gingival index (P-value <0/05).Conclusion: Licorice mouthwash is effective in the treatment of gingivits.Although it is less powerful than chlorhexidine, It can be replaced by chemical drugs as it is very useful.