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.

Given the issue of antibiotic resistance, a critical characteristic of an antiseptic is one that has no or low resistance potential (20, 51) . From our extensive review of the literature, there have been no clinical reports of microbial resistance development in response to PVP-I treatment. This is likely due to its action on multiple pathogenic targets (52). In contrast, bacterial resistance to chlorhexidine has been documented (53) . Resistance may result in alteration in bacterial susceptibility, in part, by altering the outer membranes of Gram-negative bacteria and preventing antiseptic adsorption (20) . Genes conferring resistance to chlorhexidine and quaternary ammonium compounds have been identified in up to 42% of S. aureus isolates in Europe and Japan (54, 55) ; and while there are reports of cross-resistance between antiseptics, PVP-I has remained unaffected (46, 52) .