Objectives: To compare a children’s sodium fluoride toothpaste to a placebo with respect to enamel remineralisation, enamel fluoride uptake and net acid resistance in an in situ palatal caries model in children aged 11–14 years old.
Method: This was a randomised single blind, single centre three-treatment crossover study with a 7-day washout period between treatments. The treatments were all silica based toothpastes containing 1150ppm, 250ppm or 0ppm fluoride as sodium fluoride. Each subject wore a custom-made palatal appliance containing four partially demineralised human enamel specimens for 5 minutes prior to brushing under supervision with 1.0(±0.1) gram of their allocated toothpaste for one minute. After 4 hours the appliance was removed and the enamel specimens were analysed for percent surface microhardness recovery (%SMHR) and enamel fluoride uptake (EFU) followed by a further in vitro demineralisation step to assess the percent net change in acid resistance (%NAR).
Results:
Adjusted Means (SE) for %SMHR, EFU and %NAR:
Toothpaste Treatment |
%SMHR (n=55) |
EFU (ug/cm2) (n=54) |
%NAR (n=55) |
1150ppm F |
34.4 (0.9) a |
2.20 (0.07) a |
-7.8 (1.5) a |
250ppm F |
31.7 (0.9) b |
1.54 (0.07) b |
-16.6 (1.5) b |
0ppm F |
28.8 (0.9) c |
1.00 (0.07) c |
-39.4 (1.5) c |
Treatments with the same letter are not statistically significantly different.
A dose response was observed for all efficacy parameters (%SMHR, EFU and %NAR) with statistically significant differences for each treatment comparison.
Conclusion: This in situ study demonstrates that the 1150ppm fluoride children’s toothpastes was able to provide enhanced enamel remineralisation and increased acid resistance after a single brushing in comparison to a 250ppm fluoride and a fluoride-free toothpaste.