Aims: This study was conducted to evaluate and compare the antimicrobial efficacy of green tea catechin as a mouth wash on colony count of Streptococcus mutans in children.
Materials and methods: A sample size of thirty children was selected out of screened 290 children by simple random sampling between the age group of 7 and 12 years. The study was conducted over a period of 2 weeks. After 24 h of oral prophylaxis, the baseline samples were collected and each group was subjected to mouth rinsing with green tea mouth wash for 2 weeks and further plaque and saliva samples were collected at 1- and 2-week intervals from baseline. Microbiological analysis of plaque and saliva samples was done by Dentocult SM strip kit (Orion Diagnostica, Finland), and the results were statistically analyzed and tabulated.
Results: Statistically, there was highly significant reduction in S. mutans count in plaque as well as in saliva for after 1- and 2-week intervals from baseline.
Conclusion: Hence, finally, our study showed that green tea catechin is effective as a mouth wash against S. mutans and having better action in plaque as compared to saliva. It can be used as an adjunct to commercially available mouthwashes.