Biomaterial Database

The role of the toothbrush in the abrasion process. 2011

G Tellefsen, and A Liljeborg, and A Johannsen, and G Johannsen

Department of Dental Medicine, Division of Periodontology, Karolinska Institute, Huddinge, Sweden. georg.tellefsen@ki.se

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the relative abrasivity of different toothbrushes both qualitatively and quantitatively. METHODS Acrylic plates were exposed to brushing in a brushing machine with ten different toothbrushes with water alone and with a toothpaste. The results were evaluated using a profilometer after one and 6 h of brushing (corresponding to 2000 and 12,000 double strokes, respectively). A surface roughness value (Ra-value) and also a volume loss value were calculated from the profilometer measurements. These values were then compared to each other. RESULTS The results showed that brushing with water alone caused less abrasion than when a toothpaste was added. Six-hour brushing with water caused less abrasion than 1 h with a toothpaste. The number of filaments or filament diameter influenced the results in various ways. When brushing with water, the harder toothbrush (Jordan Medium) caused more abrasion (higher Ra-value), but when adding the toothpaste, the softer toothbrush (Jordan soft) caused more abrasion after 12,000 double strokes. CONCLUSIONS Besides supporting the fact that a toothpaste is needed to create a significant abrasion, this study also showed that a softer toothbrush can cause as much and in some cases more abrasion than harder ones. When conducting abrasivity studies, it is important to look at both the quantitative and qualitative aspect of abrasivity.

UI	MeSH Term	Description	Entries
D003742	Dental Devices, Home Care	Devices used in the home by persons to maintain dental and periodontal health. The devices include toothbrushes, dental flosses, water irrigators, gingival stimulators, etc.	Dental Floss,Floss, Dental,Home Care Dental Devices
D004867	Equipment Design	Methods and patterns of fabricating machines and related hardware.	Design, Equipment,Device Design,Medical Device Design,Design, Medical Device,Designs, Medical Device,Device Design, Medical,Device Designs, Medical,Medical Device Designs,Design, Device,Designs, Device,Designs, Equipment,Device Designs,Equipment Designs
D006801	Humans	Members of the species Homo sapiens.	Homo sapiens,Man (Taxonomy),Human,Man, Modern,Modern Man
D000180	Acrylic Resins	Polymers of high molecular weight which are derived from acrylic acid, methacrylic acid or other related compounds and are capable of being molded and then hardened to form useful components.	Acrylic Resin,Resin, Acrylic,Resins, Acrylic
D013499	Surface Properties	Characteristics or attributes of the outer boundaries of objects, including molecules.	Properties, Surface,Property, Surface,Surface Property
D014072	Tooth Abrasion	The pathologic wearing away of the tooth substance by brushing, bruxism, clenching, and other mechanical causes. It is differentiated from TOOTH ATTRITION in that this type of wearing away is the result of tooth-to-tooth contact, as in mastication, occurring only on the occlusal, incisal, and proximal surfaces. It differs also from TOOTH EROSION, the progressive loss of the hard substance of a tooth by chemical processes not involving bacterial action. (From Jablonski, Dictionary of Dentistry, 1992, p2)	Dental Abrasion,Abrasion, Dental,Abrasion, Tooth
D014099	Toothbrushing	The act of cleaning teeth with a brush to remove plaque and prevent tooth decay. (From Webster, 3d ed)	Toothbrushings
D014100	Toothpastes	Dentifrices that are formulated into a paste form. They typically contain abrasives, HUMECTANTS; DETERGENTS; FLAVORING AGENTS; and CARIOSTATIC AGENTS.	Toothpaste
D018709	Statistics, Nonparametric	A class of statistical methods applicable to a large set of probability distributions used to test for correlation, location, independence, etc. In most nonparametric statistical tests, the original scores or observations are replaced by another variable containing less information. An important class of nonparametric tests employs the ordinal properties of the data. Another class of tests uses information about whether an observation is above or below some fixed value such as the median, and a third class is based on the frequency of the occurrence of runs in the data. (From McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific and Technical Terms, 4th ed, p1284; Corsini, Concise Encyclopedia of Psychology, 1987, p764-5)	Kolmogorov-Smirnov Test,Kruskal-Wallis H Statistic,Mann-Whitney U Test,Rank-Sum Tests,Spearman Rank Correlation Coefficient,Wilcox Test,Wilcoxon Rank Test,Non-Parametric Statistics,Nonparametric Statistics,Statistics, Non-Parametric,Kolmogorov Smirnov Test,Mann Whitney U Test,Non Parametric Statistics,Rank Sum Tests,Rank Test, Wilcoxon,Rank-Sum Test,Statistics, Non Parametric,Test, Kolmogorov-Smirnov,Test, Mann-Whitney U,Test, Rank-Sum,Test, Wilcox,Test, Wilcoxon Rank,Tests, Rank-Sum,U Test, Mann-Whitney