COMPARISON OF A SONIC AND A MANUAL TOOTHBRUSH FOR EFFICACY IN SUPRAGINGIVAL PLAQUE REMOVAL AND REDUCTION OF GINGIVITIS

A new sonic electric toothbrush (Sonicare(R)) and a traditional manual toothbrush were compared for efficacy in removing supragingival plaqu e and reducing gingival inflammation in a 12-week, single-blind clinic al trial. 60 subjects with a gingival index (GI) of >1.5 and no probin g depths >5 mm were randomly assigned to use either the manual or soni c brush, instructed in its use, and asked to brush each morning and ev ening for 2 minutes. Plaque scores were taken at baseline and at 1, 2, 4, and 12 weeks using the Turesky modification of the Quigley-Hein pl aque index. Gingival inflammation was assessed by the GI, bleeding ten dency score, presence or absence of bleeding on probing, volumetric me asurements of gingival crevicular fluid (GCF), and aspartate aminotran sferase (AST) levels in GCF Repeated measures multivariate analyses of variance were used to detect time- and device-dependent differences f or all clinical assessments between the 2 groups over the 5 visits. Bo th types of brush were effective iri removing supragingival plaque. Th e sonic brush was statistically superior, on a percentage reduction ba sis, in removing supragingival plaque from the dentition taken as a wh ole (F-statistic; p=0.012) and was particularly better in hard-to-reac h areas such as posterior teeth (F-statistic; p=0.003) and interproxim al sites (F-statistic; p=0.004). Both devices were equally effective i n reducing gingival inflammation. The sonic brush exhibited less tende ncy to cause gingival abrasion than the manual brush (1 incident with sonic, 5 incidents with manual), confirming the safety of this product as an oral hygiene device.