Objective: To measure the usefulness of CCLP to monitor the effect of an antimicrobial mouthrinse.
Methods: Thirty volunteers used F-free toothpaste during 4 two-week periods. In between two of these periods a commercially available antimicrobial mouthrinse was administered for one week, twice a day immediately after brushing with fluoridated toothpaste. Six hours after the last brushing, CCLP-tests were performed. Four minutes after subsequent 2-minutes 10% sucrose rinse the tongue was sampled with a cotton swab for acid analysis with Capillary Ion Analysis (CIA).
Results: From the CCLP-tests after the F-free periods 74% scored in the highest range, 10% in the lowest. 36% of the subjects scored in the same range at all 4 times whereas 72% had at least 3 scores in the same range. After one week usage of the mouthrinse, 40% of the tests scored in the lowest and 27% in the middle range. The CIA measurements revealed lactic acid concentrations of 7.8±2.5, 6.8±2.4, 7.7±3.5 and 8.6±4.1mM at the four F-free visits (intra-individual coefficient of variance 31±16%) and 2.2 ± 2.4 mM after the antimicrobial mouthrinse. Averaged over the F-free periods the individual CCLP readings were significantly correlated to the CIA measurements (r2 = 0.37, p<0.001), after the mouthrinse the correlation was better (r2 = 0.73, p<0.001).
Conclusion: The acidogenic response of the tongue either assessed with CIA or CCLP varies over time. Both methods showed to be able to detect a shift to a lower acidogenic response when an antimicrobial mouthrinse was used.
This study was supported by 3M ESPE Company.