Lice

Efficacy of Alternative and Other Treatments According to GRADE* Ranking:

Tea Tree Oil [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11]:

Please note, this management does NOT treat the condition itself. It is proposed only as a weak supportive symptomatic support, and even then, has insufficient evidence to back up this claim at present. WARNING: Tea Tree Oil is not recommended for children, pregnant women or mothers that are breastfeeding.

Recommendation: No recommendation (There is insufficient evidence to support claims that tea tree oil is effective in treating lice)

Grade of Evidence: low quality of evidence

* www.gradeworkinggroup.org

Summary References

Treatments:

1. Ades T, Alteri R, Gansler T, Yeargin P, "Complete Guide to Complimentary & Alternative Cancer Therapies", American Cancer Society, Atlanta USA, 2009

2. http://www.cancer.org/Treatment/TreatmentsandSideEffects/ComplementaryandAlternativeMedicine/HerbsVitaminsandMinerals/tea-tree-oil

3. http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/druginfo/natural/patient-teatreeoil.html

4. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18816275

5. http://bastyrcenter.org/content/view/972/&page=

6. http://jac.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/62/4/769?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=staphaseptic&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&resourcetype=HWCIT

7. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2145499

8. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9055360

9. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12451368

10. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9848442

11. Bishop, C.D. (1995). "Anti-viral Activity of the Essential Oil of Melaleuca alternifolia". Journal of Essential Oil Research: 641–644

Public Discussion