Wound Healing Following Tooth Extraction and Arnica montana C30

Background: Pursuing suggestions from empirical medicine, a pilot study in 2015 investigated and described effects of Arnica montana C30 on wound healing. 23 subjects received the verum, 23 received placebo. One day after tooth extraction, 15 verum and 10 placebo-treated subjects were pain-free, 13 and 5 respectively showed smooth (versus jagged) wound edges and 20 and 22 presented pink (versus livid) wound edges. After one week, all 23 subjects in the verum group and 21 in the control group were pain-free, none had post-operative bleeding, 20 and 17 showed smooth and 19 and 6 showed pink wound edges. Although statistically non-significant, this outcome indicated some beneficiary effect on wound healing of Arnica C30.

Objective: To replicate the pilot study on Arnica C30 and the course of healing after tooth extraction.

Methods: The study design was unicentric, controlled, randomised, double-blind. All 117 recruited subjects completed their participation: 58 received Arnica C30, 59 received non-medicinal globuli. We recorded pain, bleeding, and wound status postoperatively on day 2 and day 7.

Results: On day 2, 42 verum and 40 placebo-treated subjects were pain-free, 50 and 42 respectively had no post-operative bleeding, 28 and 24 showed smooth and 8 and 4 presented pink wound edges. After one week, all subjects were pain-free and had no post-operative bleeding, 40 and 43 showed smooth and 26 and 22 pink wound edges. None of these trends was significant (p>0.05). On pooling the results of this and the pilot study, the only statistically significant trend was on pink wound edges (p < 0.01).

Conclusion: The trends found in the present study are largely in agreement with those of the pilot study. Further research on the effects of Arnica montana C30 thus appears worthwhile.

Keywords: Tooth extraction, wound healing, Arnica montana, high potency