Plaque removal efficacy of a prototype power toothbrush compared to a positive control manual toothbrush.

Purpose: Recently, a new experimental battery-powered toothbrush was developed as a second generation to Crest SpinBrush. The brush head of this new prototype toothbrush (Crest SpinBrush Pro) incorporates a dual moving head design with one oscillating and the other translating back and forth. The objective of this study was to compare the plaque removal efficacy of a positive control manual toothbrush (Oral-B Cross Action) to this prototype power toothbrush following a repeated single use study design. In addition, this paper reports the results of a study examining the relative plaque removal efficacy of the positive control manual toothbrush to seven representative manual toothbrushes.

Methods: This study was a randomized, controlled, examiner-blind, four-period crossover design, which examined plaque removal with the two toothbrushes following a single use in 40 subjects. Plaque was scored before and after brushing using the Turesky Modification of the Quigley-Hein Index.

Results: Baseline plaque scores were 2.61 and 2.66 for the prototype power toothbrush and control toothbrush treatment groups, respectively. With respect to all surfaces examined, the prototype power toothbrush delivered an adjusted (via analysis of covariance) mean difference between baseline and post-brushing plaque scores of 0.98 while the control toothbrush delivered an adjusted mean difference of 0.74. The experimental toothbrush group, on average, had a 32.8% larger plaque removal score than the control toothbrush. These results were statistically significant (P < 0.001). Similar results were observed on buccal and lingual surfaces. In addition, results from the study comparing manual toothbrushes showed that the positive control manual toothbrush had higher plaque removal scores compared to seven representative manual toothbrushes. The plaque removal score differences reached statistical significance for five of the seven toothbrushes.