[The action on bacterial plaque of the mastication of a sorbitol chewing gum]

The authors made a clinical evaluation of mastication of sorbitol chewing gum and its interference on plaque accumulation on teeth in 14 volunteers, 10 men and 4 women with an age average of 27 y.o., who joined both control and gum groups for 1 or 2 or 3 days. Both groups, after perfectly cleaning their teeth, were requested to avoid any measure of oral hygiene for the whole time of the study and the gum group was advised to chew one sorbitol chewing gum immediately after every assumption of solid food for unless than 30' minutes with a minimum of 4 pieces a day (after breakfast, after lunch, during the afternoon, after dinner). They were supplied with one of two most diffused sorbitol chewing gums in Italy: Vivident in 8 and Happydent in 6 cases. The choice of sorbitol was made because it can be considered a non-cariogenic sweetener and because in our country it is the most used in the so called "senza zucchero" gums and sweets. Plaque extension was evaluated by Quigley-Hein plaque index with the same procedure of the original work and taken as a parametric value in order to apply parametric tests as media, normal distribution, standard deviation, variance, Student's tests, etc. These evaluations were made on Ramfjord's teeth: 1.6, 2.1, 2.4, 3.6, 4.1, 4.4 each one divided in two half. Results, so processed, showed a significant reduction (-0.96%; p < 0.01) of plaque index for 1 day with best effect on vestibular half of frontal teeth (p between < 0.01 and < 0.001).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)