Laboratory investigation comparing plaque removal efficacy of two novel-design toothbrushes with different brushing techniques

Abstract

© 2018 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license. Manufacturers of manual toothbrushes have improved novel brush head designs aimed at achieving good plaque removal even with inadequate brushing technique. This study tested the plaque removal efficacy of two novel designs compared with a flat trimmed toothbrush with different brushing techniques. Two novel-design toothbrushes (Colgate fi 360 ◦ Surround and Oral-B fi Pro-Health Clinical Pro-Flex) were tested. The control toothbrush was Butler fi GUM 311. Artificial plaque was applied on artificial teeth. Brushing with the modified Bass and horizontal scrub technique was then performed independently. After brushing, the remaining plaque index and Proximal Marginal Index (PMI) were evaluated. With the same brushing technique, there was no statistically significant difference in the mean of the whole mouth plaque scores or PMI among the three different toothbrush designs with neither brushing techniques (p > 0.05). When a comparison was made between the mean PMI of the two brushing techniques in each toothbrush design, Colgate fi showed no statistically significant difference with either brushing technique (p > 0.05), but Butler fi and Oral-B fi showed statistically significantly less PMI with modified Bass technique than with horizontal scrub technique (p < 0.05). No difference in the whole mouth plaque removal efficacy was found among the three different toothbrush designs with either brushing technique.