In vitro antifungal effect of Thymus vulgaris essence on Candida albicans isolated from patients with oral candidiasis

Candida albicans is the most common etiologic agent of diseases caused by yeasts of Candida genus. The treatment of these infections is necessary because they may spread in neutropenic and immunosuppressed patients. Fungi resistance to some antifungal drugs is being increased. In addition, many of these drugs are toxic and expensive. Therefore, the study of natural plant products which can be effective against these fungi is necessary. Among the plants which have shown in vitro efficient biologic activity, is Thymus vulgaris. Thus the aim of this research was to study the inhibitory effect of Thymus vulgaris essence on of Candida albicans growth. In this research, fifty patients with oral candidiasis were studied. The obtained swab samples were cultured on Sabouraud Dextrose Agar supplemented with cycloheximide and chloramphenicol (SCC) medium, finally with performance of supplementary tests. 32 isolates were recognized as Candida albicans. Then we added Thymus vulgaris essence to SCC medium in different concentrations and the Minimum Inhibitory Concentration (MIC) of the essence was accounted for different suspension dilutions of Candida albicans. The MIC of the Thymus vulgaris essence for the dilutions of 100, 10-1 and 10-2 of Candida albicans was 0.390µl/ medium and for dilutions of 10-3 and 10-4 were 0.195 and 0.0975 µl/ medium. The Thymus vulgaris essence has a very good antifungal effect against Candida albicans so that low amounts it can inhibit Candida albicans growth.