Methods: In a study with split-mouth and double blind design, 44 patients in need of bilateral removal of impacted third molars underwent randomized surgical extraction. Following one surgery, patients rinsed with a green tea mouthwash from the first to seventh postoperative day and after other extraction rinsed with placebo mouthwash for the same duration. Both patients and surgeon were blinded to the type of mouthwash. The predictor variable was the type of mouthwash and primary outcome variable was postoperative pain measured by visual analogue scale (VAS) during the first week after surgery. In addition, the number of analgesics patients used after surgery recorded. To analyze data, repeated measures with confidence interval of 95% was performed.
Results: Total of 43 patients with mean age of 24 years underwent total of 86 surgeries. VAS value had no statistically difference prior rinsing among groups (P>0.05). However, the mean value of VAS following rinsing with green tea was statistically lower than placebo in postoperative days of 3-7 (P<0.05). In addition, while rinsing with green tea, patients took significantly lower number of analgesics after surgery (P<0.05). No side effects were reported.
Conclusions: Green tea mouthwash could be an appropriate and safe choice to control postoperative pain after molar surgery.