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

PURPOSE: To compare the plaque removal efficacy of a control manual toothbrush (Lion Dentor Systema) to this prototype power toothbrush (Blend-a-Med Power) 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 control manual toothbrush to nine representative manual toothbrushes. METHODS: This study was a randomized, controlled, examiner-blind, 6-period crossover design which examined plaque removal with the two toothbrushes following a single use in 86 completed subjects. Plaque was scored before and after brushing using the Turesky Modification of the Quigley-Hein Index. A second 10-period crossover study was conducted to index the relative plaque removal performance of the control manual toothbrush (Lion Dentor Systema) to nine representative manual toothbrushes. RESULTS: Baseline plaque scores were 2.322 and 2.305 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 0.633 while the control toothbrush delivered an adjusted mean difference of 0.576. The experimental toothbrush group, on average, had a 9.9% larger plaque removal score than the control toothbrush. These results were statistically significant (P= 0.014). Similar results were observed on buccal and lingual surfaces. In addition, results from the study comparing manual toothbrushes showed that the control manual toothbrush had similar plaque removal scores, not statistically significantly different, relative to nine representative manual toothbrushes.