Scabies

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. Also, Tea tree oil should never be taken internally. Should only be used over skin, inhaled with a vaporizer, or mixed with water as a mouthwash.)

Recommendation: weakly in favor (Laboratory studies have shown that tea tree oil may be effective in treating scabies. However more research needs to be done in the form of clinical trials)

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