Efficacy of Dental Bleaching with Whitening Dentifrices: A Systematic Review

A systematic review was performed to evaluate whether whitening toothpastes promote tooth whitening when compared to the use of conventional (nonbleaching) dentifrices. This review was registered at PROSPERO (CRD42017065132) and is based on the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses. Electronic systematic searches of PubMed/MEDLINE, Scopus, and the Cochrane Library were conducted for published articles. Only randomized clinical trials in adults that compared the use of so-called whitening dentifrices to the use of nonwhitening dentifrices were selected. The outcome was tooth color change. Twenty-two articles from 703 data sources met the eligibility criteria. After title and abstract screening, 16 studies remained, after which a further five studies were excluded. In total, nine studies were qualitatively analyzed. Significant differences in tooth color change were found between the groups using whitening dentifrices and those using nonwhitening dentifrices. Within the limitations of this study, the evidence from this systematic review suggests that bleaching dentifrices have potential in tooth whitening. However, although many whitening dentifrices have been introduced into the dental market for bleaching treatments, it is important to analyze tooth surface and color changes when performing home bleaching.