Monolaurin Ointment Versus Mupirocin Ointment
Condition: Bacterial Infections
MeSH terms: Infections; Bacterial Infections
Study type: Interventional
Phase: Early Phase 1

Summary: 
      Skin infection remains one of the leading causes of pediatric consults especially in
      developing countries like the Philippines. This common condition has not been considered a
      significant problem that could cause alarm as public health importance. Furthermore, due to
      the consideration that skin diseases are benign, not life-threatening, and low priority.
    

Detailed description: 
      The advanced technology of modern science aims to formulate a new class of antibiotics due to
      the emergence of antibiotic resistance in microorganisms becoming a concerning threat in the
      medical community. Nowadays, the use of traditional medicines derived from natural plants is
      in increasing demand which is geared toward going back to nature as a source of medications.
      17 Recently natural plants have gained popularity in society for their medical purposes,
      which have important therapeutic properties that can be used in the treatment of emerging and
      re-emerging diseases. 17,18 Pharmaceutical companies continue to do vigorous research to
      discover a new antimicrobial compound with a new mechanism of action for new infectious
      diseases and consistently tried to find solutions to the problem of multiple resistance to
      the existing synthetic and conventional antimicrobial agents. Therefore, more researchers and
      investigators direct their attention to antimicrobial of plant origin which is found to be
      less in adverse reactions. 5,19 Monolaurin is a type of monoacylglycerol from lauric acid.
      This can be produced from varieties of oil including coconut oil. Monolaurin is included on
      the FDA's Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) list and is widely used in food manufacturing.
      Coconut oil naturally contains around 40-50% lauric acid, the principal compound used to make
      monolaurin. Studies showed, both in vitro and in vivo that monolaurin and lauric acid are
      very active against pathogenic bacteria. They act through several mechanisms, namely (Dayrit,
      2014) (1) destruction of lipid-coated bacterial and viral cell membranes by physicochemical
      processes, (2) disturbances of the signal transduction and transcription in cells, (3)
      stabilization of the host-cells membrane (human cells). 29 Furthermore, limited clinical
      trials were reported on the use of monolaurin against skin infection specifically in the
      pediatric population. The null hypothesis of this study is that the monolaurin ointment is
      equivalent to mupirocin ointment in efficacy. The objective of this study was to determine
      the clinical efficacy of monolaurin ointment versus mupirocin ointment in the treatment of
      skin infections, in a community-based setting.
    

Intervention name(s): Monolaurin; Mupirocin ointment
Intervention type(s): Drug; Drug
Intervention description(s): applied thinly twice a day; applied thinly twice a day
Other intervention name(s): Treatment Group; Control
Intervention MeSH terms: Mupirocin; Monolaurin
Allocation: Randomized
Intervention model: Parallel Assignment
Masking: Double (Participant, Investigator)
Primary purpose: Treatment