Impact of manual toothbrush design on plaque removal efficacy

BMC Oral Health

Research

Alyson Axe¹  Helen Rafferty¹  Wolf Dieter Mueller¹  Peter Gaengler²  Tomas Lang² 

[1] Haleon (formerly GSK Consumer Healthcare), Weybridge, Surrey, UK;ORMED Institute for Oral Medicine, University of Witten/Herdecke, Witten, Germany;

关键词: Toothbrushing;    Dental plaque;    Filaments;    Manual toothbrush;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12903-023-03518-6

 received in 2023-02-22, accepted in 2023-10-10,  发布年份 2023

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundEffective dental plaque removal is essential for oral health. Different toothbrush parameters including head-size, filament-diameter and interdent-height and different brushing movements like horizontal, rotating and vertical may affect plaque removal efficacy. The purpose of the study was to examine plaque removal efficacy of different design parameters of manual toothbrushes.MethodsEight manual toothbrushes were tested using a validated robot test to examine efficacy of toothbrush on replicated human teeth. Characteristics tested were: (i) head-size, (ii) filament-diameter, (iii) cutting-height, (iv) hardness, (v) interdental-height. Each test ran five times in horizontal, rotating, vertical movements. Simulated Plaque removal was evaluated using automated plaque planimetry: 30 fields/tooth, 13 areas representing buccal, lingual, proximal tooth sites. The Kolmogorov-Smirnov-test was applied to test tooth surface variables for normal distribution of plaque removal values. Parameters were analysed by independent two-sample t-test to assess mean differences. Where null hypothesis of normality was rejected, the Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney-U-test was used.ResultsPlaque removal was significantly better with toothbrush having smaller head-size (compact vs. full-size); smaller filament-diameter (0.12 mm vs. 0.15 mm); larger cutting-height (12 mm vs. 9 mm); softer filaments (0.15 or 0.18 mm vs. 0.23 mm) and greater interdent-height difference (8.5/11 mm vs. 10/11 mm).ConclusionsManual brushes allowing filaments free to flex with longer, softer and/or having a difference in filament length overall removed significantly more simulated plaque as compared to more standard flat trim, stiff brushes with shorter, harder bristles and a larger head size. While limited by the in vitro nature of the study design, this indicates that the advances in toothbrush design can further enhance plaque removal.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© BioMed Central Ltd., part of Springer Nature 2023

【 图 表 】

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