Objectives: This clinical study was assessed to evaluate the plaque removal efficacy of a power toothbrush with an orthodontic brush head compared to a regular brush head and a manual toothbrush in orthodontic patients.
Methods: All patients enrolled had multibracket-appliances in both arches. This study was a randomized, operator-blind, 6-period crossover design, which examined plaque removal of three toothbrushes (Oral-B® TriumphTM 5000 with Ortho brush head or FlossActionTM brush head and an ADA manual toothbrush)in 45 completed subjects. Plaque was measured pre- and post-brushing using the Digital Plaque Imaging Analysis (DPIA) method. The difference scores were analyzed for group differences using a mixed model analysis of covariance for a crossover design.
Results: Subject age ranged from 12 to 25 years with mean ± SD of 14.6 (± 2.4). The average baseline DPIA scores were 46.5% for the Triumph with Ortho head, 45.5% for Triumph with FlossActionTM head and 46.1% for the ADA manual brush, which were not statistically different from each other (p=0.856). The plaque reduction for the power brush with orthodontic brush head, with regular brush head and manual toothbrush was 59.5%, 55.9% and 47.0%, respectively (p<0.001). Triumph brush with Ortho or with FlossActionTM brush head was statistically superior to the ADA brush (p<0.001).The power brush with orthodontic head showed statistically higher plaque reduction than the power brush with regular head (p=0.007).
Conclusions: Both power brush/ brush head combinations were found to remove statistically significantly more plaque compared to a manual toothbrush in patients with fixed appliances.