Susceptibility of Candida albicans and Candida dubliniensis to Photodynamic Therapy Using Four Dyes as the Photosensitizer

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM: Oral candidiasis is the most common opportunistic infection affecting the human oral cavity. Photodynamic therapy, as one of its proposed treatment modalities, needs a distinct dye for achieving the best effect. PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to evaluate photosensitization effects of four distinct dyes on standard suspension of Candida albicans (C. albicans) and Candida dubliniensis (C. dubliniensis) and biofilm of C. albicans considering the obtained optimum dye concentration and duration of laser irradiation. MATERIALS AND METHOD: In this in vitro study, colony forming units (CFU) of two sets of four groups of Laser plus Dye (L+D+), Dye (L-D+), Laser (L+D-) and No Laser, No Dye (L-D-) were assessed individually with different methylene blue concentrations and laser irradiation period. The photodynamic therapy effect on standard suspension of Candida species (using methylene blue, aniline blue, malachite green and crystal violet) were studied based on the obtained results. Similar investigation was performed on biofilm of C. albicans using the spectral absorbance. Data were imported to SPSS and assessed by statistical tests of analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Tukey test (α= 0.05). RESULTS: CFU among the different dye concentration and irradiation time decrease in dose- and time-dependent manner (p> 0.05), all of which were significantly lower than the control groups (p< 0.05). Among the examined photosensitizers, there was no statistically significant difference, (p> 0.05) though all of them were significantly decrease CFU compared with the control groups (p< 0.05). In L+D- and L+D+ groups, biofilm was significantly destroyed more than that of L-D- (p< 0.05). CONCLUSION: Photodynamic therapy might be used as an effective procedure to treat Candida associated mucocutaneous diseases and killing biofilm in the infected surfaces such as dentures.