Antifungal activity of some toothpastes and antiseptic solutions against yeasts isolated from the oral cavity of cancer radiated patients

This study aimed to investigate the antifungal efficacy of different types of toothpaste and some antiseptic solutions with varying concentrations against yeast isolated from the oral cavity of radiated patients suffering from head and neck cancer in radiotherapy unit in Suez Canal University teaching’s hospital, Egypt. Eight different species of yeast were isolated taxonomically, assigned to 1 phylum, two classes, one order, and three families and identified phenotypically. The antifungal activity of five kinds of toothpaste and three antiseptic solutions were investigated by agar well diffusion method against the eight isolated yeasts namely: Candida glabrata, C. albicans, C. tropicalis, C. kefyr, C. guilliermondii, C. parapsilosis, Dipodascus geotrichum and Geotrichum beigelii and expressed as the value of the clear zone diameter, however, Their activity was expressed by minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC). Results showed that toothpaste no 1, 3, 4 and 5 were effective against all tested taxa by variable inhibitory degrees. However, no. 2 showed efficacy only against C. glabrata, C. guilliermondii, and C. parapsilosis, Antiseptic solution no 1 showed the highest efficacy against all tested species except C. kefyr while no. 2 was effective against all the tested species except two taxa and finally no. 3 exhibited good antifungal activity against all the tested taxa. In conclusion, we recommended the use of toothpaste contained sodium monofluorophosphate, or sodium fluoride, as an active component followed by a mouthwash which contained Chlorohexidine or Cetylpridinium or miswak as active components to prevent colonization and development of oral candidiasis, especially in cancer patients. Key words– Candida, efficacy, Dipodascus geotrichum, Geotrichum beigelii, Suez Canal University. Introduction The oral cavity is a habitat for a large number of microbiota which coexists with another as a normal microbiome. However, Candida species are ovoid budding yeast-like fungi found as a normal commensal in the oral cavity, vagina, and skin and throughout the gastrointestinal tract of humans. Some factors leading to increased incidence of oral thrush and candidiasis as poor oral hygiene, nutritional deficiencies, high carbohydrate diet, diabetes mellitus, heavy cigarette smoking, dental prostheses, treatment by radiotherapy, immunosuppression, and HIV infection (Meghana et al. 2015). Thus the changes occur in mechanisms of host defense, and the buccal Microbial Biosystems 3(1): 25–33 (2018) ISSN 2357-0334 http://fungiofegypt.com/Journal/index.html Microbial Biosystems Copyright © 2018 Attia Online Edition