Plaque Removal with a Battery Operated Power Toothbrush

Background: The effectiveness of power toothbrushes is well established. Objective: This clinical study was conducted to evaluate the plaque removal efficacy of a novel battery-powered toothbrush with a translational head compared to a manual toothbrush Methods: This study was a randomized, examiner-blind, 6-period crossover design, which examined plaque removal with the two toothbrushes following three repeated single uses with each toothbrush in 86 completed subjects. Plaque was scored before and after brushing using the Turesky Modification of the Quigley-Hein Index. Results: Baseline plaque scores were 2.322 and 2.305 for the power toothbrush and manual toothbrush treatments, respectively. With respect to all surfaces examined, the power toothbrush delivered an adjusted (via analysis of covariance) mean difference between baseline and post-brushing plaque scores of 0.633 while the manual toothbrush delivered an adjusted mean difference of 0.576. The power toothbrush treatment, on average, had a 10% larger plaque removal score than the single motion toothbrush treatment. These results were statistically significant (p=0.01). With respect to buccal surfaces examined, the power toothbrush delivered an adjusted (via analysis of covariance) mean difference between baseline and post-brushing plaque scores of 0.885 while the manual toothbrush delivered an adjusted mean difference of 0.781. The power toothbrush treatment, on average, had a 13% larger plaque removal score than the single motion toothbrush treatment. These results were statistically significant (p=0.002). Plaque removal results on the lingual surfaces were not statistically significantly different. Conclusion: The battery-powered toothbrush with a translating head was found to remove statistically significantly more plaque than the control manual toothbrush.