Practical use of povidone-iodine antiseptic in the maintenance of oral health and in the prevention and treatment of common oropharyngeal infections

Kanagalingam, J.; Feliciano, R.; Hah, J. H.; Labib, H.; Le, T. A.; Lin, J.-C.

In addition to its broad-spectrum microbial activity and low potential for resistance, PVP-I has also demonstrated haemostyptic and anti-inflammatory effects during minor oral surgery (96) (97) (98) . In a singleblind randomised study, alveolar sockets of patients following tooth extraction were irrigated with either PVP-I plus saline or saline alone. Significantly, more patients in the PVP-I group experienced spontaneous bleeding cessation than those in the control group (p < 0.001). This study highlighted, for the first time, the haemostatic action of PVP-I. This effect was further demonstrated in a prospective pilot study assessing the time to optimal haemostasis in patients undergoing periapical surgery for single-rooted maxillary anterior tooth lesions (97) . Compared with saline, when PVP-I was used to irrigate the periapical surgical field with cotton, there was a significant reduction in the time to bleeding cessation at the apex (p = 0.004). There were also marked reductions in visual analogue scale scores of oedema on the first two post-operative days and in the use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (97) .