One- and 3-minute plaque removal by a battery-powered versus a manual toothbrush

• Published in: Journal of periodontology (1970) Vol. 75; no. 8; p. 1107
• Main Authors: Williams, Karen, Ferrante, Anita, Dockter, Kathy, Haun, Jan, Biesbrock, Aaron R, Bartizek, Robert D
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States 01.08.2004
• Subjects: Adult; Aged; Cross-Over Studies; Dental Devices, Home Care; Dental Plaque - therapy; Dental Plaque Index; Electricity; Equipment Design; Female; Humans; Male; Middle Aged; Single-Blind Method; Toothbrushing - instrumentation
• ISSN: 0022-3492; 1943-3670
• DOI: 10.1902/jop.2004.75.8.1107

A new battery-powered toothbrush with a fundamentally different design than other powered toothbrushes has recently been introduced. The new toothbrush has a powered oscillating round head and a second powered head that translates back and forth. This study compared the plaque removal efficacy of a manual toothbrush to this new powered toothbrush. This randomized, controlled, examiner-masked, four-period cross-over study examined plaque removal with the two toothbrushes following a single use in 40 subjects. Plaque was scored before brushing and after 1 and 3 minutes of brushing using the Turesky modification of the Quigley-Hein index. Baseline plaque scores were 2.98 prior to using the powered toothbrush and 2.99 prior to using the manual toothbrush. The powered toothbrush delivered a covariance-adjusted mean plaque score change from baseline of 0.61 after 1 minute of brushing and 0.93 after 3 minutes of brushing. The adjusted mean changes for the manual toothbrush were 0.43 and 0.62, respectively. The differences between treatment groups were statistically significant (P < 0.001) after both 1 and 3 minutes of brushing. The powered toothbrush had, on average, 42.1% and 49.6% greater plaque removal scores after 1 minute and 3 minutes of brushing, respectively. Both toothbrushes had statistically significantly greater plaque removal scores after 3 minutes than after 1 minute of brushing (P < 0.001). Plaque removal scores for each toothbrush after 3 minutes of brushing were about 50% higher than the scores after 1 minute of brushing. The powered toothbrush delivered statistically significantly superior plaque removal after both 1 and 3 minutes of brushing compared to the manual toothbrush. Both toothbrushes showed statistically significantly greater plaque removal following 3 minutes of brushing than following 1 minute of brushing, and the difference between the toothbrushes was greater following 3 minutes of brushing than following 1 minute of brushing.