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Updated: Jun 11, 2026
Mimicking and Measuring Occlusal Erosive Tooth Wear with the "Rub&Roll" and Non-contact Profilometry
Published on: February 2, 2018
The use of a profilometer for both quantitative and qualitative measurements of toothpaste abrasivity
A Liljeborg1, G Tellefsen, G Johannsen
1KTH-Albanova, Nanostructurephysics, Stockholm, Sweden. anders@biox.kth.se
Aim:
To evaluate the abrasivity of different toothpastes both quantitatively and qualitatively with a profilometer technique and to correlate these findings to the radioactive dentin abrasivity (RDA) value.
Materials And Methods:
Acrylic plates were exposed to brushing in a brushing machine with 11 different toothpastes. The results were evaluated using a profilometer. A surface roughness value (Ra-value), that is, a qualitative measurement, and also a volume value, that is, a quantitative measurement, were calculated from the profilometer results. These values were then correlated to each other and to the RDA-value. A comparison between RDA, Ra and volume measurements was performed using linear fitting procedure.
Results:
The results showed that the correlation between RDA and Ra measurements was low (R(2) = 0.04) and also that the correlation between RDA and volume measurements was low (R(2) = 0.00002). Correlation between Ra and abraded volume was high (R(2) = 0.87).
Conclusions:
It is important to consider not only the RDA-value when evaluating toothpaste abrasivity. From the profilometer results both a quantitative (volume) and qualitative (roughness) measurement of the abrasivity of a toothpaste can be obtained.
