One‐ and 3‐Minute Plaque Removal by a Battery‐Powered Versus a Manual Toothbrush

Background: A new battery‐powered toothbrush with a fundamentally different design than other powered toothbrushes has recently been introduced. The new toothbrush has a powered oscillating round head and a second powered head that translates back and forth. This study compared the plaque removal efficacy of a manual toothbrush to this new powered toothbrush. Methods: This randomized, controlled, examiner‐masked, four‐period cross‐over study examined plaque removal with the two toothbrushes following a single use in 40 subjects. Plaque was scored before brushing and after 1 and 3 minutes of brushing using the Turesky modification of the Quigley‐Hein index. Results: Baseline plaque scores were 2.98 prior to using the powered toothbrush and 2.99 prior to using the manual toothbrush. The powered toothbrush delivered a covariance‐adjusted mean plaque score change from baseline of 0.61 after 1 minute of brushing and 0.93 after 3 minutes of brushing. The adjusted mean changes for the manual toothbrush were 0.43 and 0.62, respectively. The differences between treatment groups were statistically significant ( P <0.001) after both 1 and 3 minutes of brushing. The powered toothbrush had, on average, 42.1% and 49.6% greater plaque removal scores after 1 minute and 3 minutes of brushing, respectively. Both toothbrushes had statistically significantly greater plaque removal scores after 3 minutes than after 1 minute of brushing ( P <0.001). Plaque removal scores for each toothbrush after 3 minutes of brushing were about 50% higher than the scores after 1 minute of brushing. Conclusions: The powered toothbrush delivered statistically significantly superior plaque removal after both 1 and 3 minutes of brushing compared to the manual toothbrush. Both toothbrushes showed statistically significantly greater plaque removal following 3 minutes of brushing than following 1 minute of brushing, and the difference between the toothbrushes was greater following 3 minutes of brushing than following 1 minute of brushing. J Periodontol 2004;75:1107‐1113 .