Dental experts are warning mouthwash could cause oral cancer and should be made available on prescription only.
A review published in the Australian Dental Journal has linked mouthwash containing alcohol to an increased risk of developing the deadly disease.
The alcohol in mouthwash is believed to allow cancercausing compounds to attack the lining of the mouth more easily.
The review author, Michael McCullough, is an Associate Professor in Oral medicine at Melbourne University.
He says dentists need to be aware of the risks of mouthwash.
"If they are going to recommend alcohol-containing products then they recommend it for a good reason, for a short period of time," he said.
"With this evidence that we've reviewed, we think it's not advisable for them to recommend it for the long, over a long period of time."
He says oral cancer examinations should be part of any dental check up.
"It should be just part of a regular examination so that when patients should be attending their dentist regularly for their teeth but also as part of that they should, in effect, have an oral cancer screening," he said.
"The vast majority of dentists do that, we just need to document it and tell the patients that's why we're doing it."
Professor McCullough says he is also concerned about mouthwash products that are readily available in supermarkets.
"There are products out there that are being recommended that have high levels of alcohol," he said.
"The most common is up at about 26 per cent alcohol in mouthwashes which is about twice as much as in wine and is being recommended as a product to use more than once a day, over an extended period of time to benefit the oral cavity."
But the New South Wales Cancer Institute's Professor Jim Bishop says the research forming the basis of the report does not specify the degree of risk.
He says the institute wants to commission more research into the issue.
"We don't know what sort of risk we're talking about with people who use mouthwash regularly... it might be quite low or it might be high so we need to know the degree of risk that's involved," he said.
More than 800 Australians are diagnosed with oral cancer each year.
About half of them die within five years of being diagnosed.
