Evaluating Chitosan Effectiveness as Hemostatic Agent on Patients on Antiplatelet Therapy

Aim: Evaluating the effect of chitosan on hemostasis has taken a plethora of outcomes in the current dental medicine literature. Nonetheless, this split-mouth randomized controlled trial comes to investigate the correlation between two groups - patients on antiplatelet therapy, aspirin - in terms of bleeding time, as the only variable. Materials and Methods: 40 patients were included in this study, who had two opposite extraction sockets on opposite sides of the jaws. They were divided into the control and experimental groups; they both received gauze dental dressing for the former group and chitosan for the latter. Hemostasis was measured via a new method that has not been utilized before in the literature. The bleeding event was recorded and data were analyzed using SPSS and MS Excel. Results: It has been found that a low correlative coefficient value, plummeting to only 0.136, existed for the 80-tooth samples in both the control and experimental groups. This has been ascribed to the nature of the hemostatic mechanism of chitosan, as a renowned marine biopolymer in dental practices. Conclusion: INR values seemed unlikely to support the existent claims on chitosan effect, leaving a venue to interrogate the explanation that validates the electric aggregation link between chitosan and red blood cells to reach the hemostasis event. Clinical Significance: Measuring the bleeding time, besides, was done in an unconventional process to monitor the bleeding intervals. Further research is suggested to evaluate this present study, taking into account the surrounding factors that interfere in the chitosan-enhanced hemostasis process, being thermal or mechanical.