Comparative toxicity of oxygenated monoterpenoids in experimental hydroalcoholic lotions to permethrin-resistant adult head lice

PAOLA GONZALEZ-AUDINO • MARı´A INE´S PICOLLO • ANABELLA GALLARDO • ARIEL TOLOZA • CLAUDIA VASSENA • GASTO´N MOUGABURE-CUETO

ARCHIVES OF DERMATOLOGICAL RESEARCH

SPRINGER

Año: 2010 vol. 000 p. 1 - 6

0340-3696

The use of botanical compounds such as essentialoils has recently become the subject of great interest as anatural means of pest control because of their ovicidal, larvicidal,or adulticidal activity against various insect speciesincluding head lice. We tested and compared the efficacy ofpure oxygenated monoterpenoids that are main ingredientsof essential oils of good biological activity. We used pulegoneand citral, components of Aloysia citrodora, andgeraniol, citronellol, and linalool, components of Geraniumsp. oil. We found that citronellol and geraniol showed thehighest knockdown and mortality effect ([60%) on adults ofboth sexes (50:50%) and third-stage nymphs. Pulegone,linalool, and citral showed knockdown percentages between42 and 55%, and mortality percentages between 47 and 53%.A simple linear regression analysis showed statisticallysignificant relationships between the studied toxic effectsand viscosity of the monoterpenoids (p�.05), but not withtheir partition coefficient (log P).