Antibacterial efficacy of zinc oxide paste with various essential oils against enterococcuc faecalis and its comparison with zinc oxide eugenol paste

Aim: To evaluate the susceptibility of E.faecalis to zinc oxide paste with various essential oils like tea tree oil, thyme oil, peppermint oil and to compare it with commonly used zinc oxide eugenol paste.
Methodology: Three different test materials i.e; zinc oxide with tea tree oil (ZnO+TT), zinc oxide with thyme oil (ZnO+Th), zinc oxide with peppermint oil (ZnO+P) were freshly mixed. All the test materials were compared with zinc oxide eugenol paste (ZnO+E) which is routinely used as root canal filling material in pediatric dentistry. Culture of E.faecalis was uniformly spread on the agar plates. Wells of 6mm diameter were punched in Muller Hincton agar plates into which test materials were added.   Procedure was completed by using agar diffusion method. All the plates were kept in incubator at 37ºC for 24 hrs and inhibition zones were measured in mm. Results of test materials were compared with zinc oxide eugenol paste statistically using ANOVA and Tukey’s post-hoc test at a significance level of 5%
Results: Zones of inhibition against E.faecalis were more for ZnO+Th oil (28.00±1.78) followed by ZnO+TT oil (19.00±4.51); ZnO+E oil (10.83±1.47) and ZnO+P oil (8.00±0.00) with statistically significant differences (0.0001, S,p<0.05)
Conclusion: After comparing ZnO+E oil paste, it can be concluded that ZnO+Th oil paste showed higher zones of inhibition suggestive of it, being the effective antimicrobial paste which can be used as root canal filling paste in primary teeth. ZnO+TT oil also showed good antimicrobial efficacy in comparison to ZnO+E oil paste.