Antibacterial Effectiveness of Chitosan Solution on Streptococcus Mutans

Dental caries is a localized destruction on teeth by organic acid produced by carbohydrate fermentation of cariogenic bacteria. Streptococcus mutans is a Gram-positive bacterium, a facultative anaerobe species often found in human oral cavity and is a significant contributor to dental caries. Chitosan is the collective name of a group of partially or fully deacetylated chitin. Because of its unique biological properties, including biodegradability and nontoxicity, a lot of applications have been found for chitosan, on its own or combined with other polymers. Chitosan has a wide spectrum of activity and high killing rate against Gram positive and Gram-negative bacteria, while having low toxicity against mammal cell. In this research a Kirby-Bauer test is done on Streptococcus mutans using 1%, 1.5%, and 2% chitosan solution as treatment group and aquades as control group. Average of each group is calculated and significancy is determined using statistical calculation. The resulting data is analyzed using Kruskal-Wallis and Post-hoc Tukey HSD and is shown there to be a significant difference between each treatment groups. The biggest zone of inhibition is seen on the 2% chitosan solution group. 2% chitosan solution has higher antibacterial effectiveness on Streptococcus mutans than 1% and 1.5% chitosan solution.