Abstract Objective: To find out the effects of various natural cerumenolytic products (e.g. ascorbic acid, α-tocopherol, rosemary, pine turpentine, pergamote, chestnut, rosehip and rose oils, and onion tincture) as well as distilled water and pure olive oil on the disintegration/dissolution of cerumen.
Method: Cerumen was provided by mechanical removal from adult patients who attended the otolaryngology clinic. Each cerumen sample was placed in a tube containing one of eleven test solutions. The cerumens undissolved were weighed at specific time intervals. e.g., 1 hour, 5 hours, 1 days, 2 days and 5 days. The efficacy of these oils and vitamins were evaluated by measuring the weight of cerumen part disintegrated/undissolved.
Results: The results showed that highest percentage of cerumen disintegration was found for ascorbic acid within 1 hour, followed by pine oil and distilled water in 5 hours, onion tincture in 5 hours, chestnut oil in 2 days, rose oil and α-tocopherol in 5 days, respectively. However, rose, pergamote, chestnut and rosemary oils along with α-tocopherol and onion tincture disintegrated entirely the cerumen within 5 days only, except for olive oil and rosehip oil having the disintegration ratio of about 68% within 5 days.
Conclusion: It could be concluded that the products studied here could be used as cerumenolytic products having different disintegration period depending upon their chemical composition. Furthermore, distilled water showed the greater degree of cerumenolysis compared to oil-based cerumenolytics.
Keywords Cerumen; Disintegration, Ascorbic acid ; Pine oil, In Vitro.