Abstract
Because of the awareness of people to good hygiene in recent years, there are now many people who are more concern about halitosis or commonly known as ‘bad breath’. Therapeutic or prophylactic agents for the suppression of halitosis have increased. Zinc chloride has been recognized to affect volatile sulfur oxide which is the main substance that has been traditionally known to cause halitosis. In this study, we compared the inhibitory effect of bismuth oxychloride and zinc chloride in vitro on hydrogen sulfide and methyl mercaptan sulfur which are volatile substances. As a result, both bismuth oxychloride and zinc oxide have the same inhibitory effect on hydrogen sulfide. On the other hand, bismuth oxychloride’s inhibitory effect on methyl mercaptan is significantly higher than zinc chloride.
