The effect of a microbead dentifrice on microbial load in oral microenvironments

The human oral cavity contains several microenvironments or ecologic niches. While mechanical plaque control is well known to reduce the number of supragingival dental plaque bacteria, there is little data on antimicrobial effects in other oral ecologic niches. The present study examined the effects of mechanical plaque control using a microbead dentifrice on bacteria colonizing oral ecologic niches.

Twenty-two adults (aged 18-70years) including nine generalized moderate chronic periodontitis subjects and 13 periodontally healthy subjects having average gingival indices ≥1 and plaque indices ≥1.5 completed a 1week washout phase and refrained from oral hygiene the morning of baseline sample collection. Microbial samples from supragingival dental plaque, buccal mucosa, dorsal surface of the tongue and whole mixed saliva were obtained. Subjects brushed with a microbead dentifrice and, after 10min, sampling was repeated. The number of anaerobic bacteria was determined by culture on non-selective media and transformed to log(10) for statistical analyses.

Mechanical plaque control using the microbead dentifrice resulted in statistically significant reductions in bacterial numbers in each ecologic niche (P<0.001). The greatest reduction in the number of viable bacteria occurred in samples taken from the buccal mucosa (97.22%) followed by a 95.22% reduction in supragingival plaque bacteria, a 94.51% reduction in the number of bacteria on the dorsal surface of the tongue and a 91.57% reduction in the number of bacteria in whole mixed saliva.

Mechanical plaque control using a microbead dentifrice reduces microbial load in microenvironments throughout the human oral cavity.