Related Experiment Video
Updated: Nov 6, 2025
Competitive Transplants to Evaluate Hematopoietic Stem Cell Fitness
Published on: August 31, 2016
A randomized controlled trial of manual versus powered tooth brushing during haematopoietic stem cell transplantation
Carin M J Potting1, Stephanie J M van Leeuwen1,2, Marie-Helene Kurstjens3
1Department of Haematology, Radboudumc, Radboud Institute for Health Sciences, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
Aim:
To compare manual and powered tooth brushing (MT and PT) with respect to patient compliance to brushing frequency advice, plaque removal and severity of oral mucositis (OM) in patients undergoing hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) after high-dose chemotherapy.
Materials & Methods:
A randomized controlled trial was conducted. Forty-six patients scheduled to receive myeloablative conditioning regimen before autologous HSCT were included and randomly assigned to control (MT, n = 23) or test (PT, n = 23) groups. Starting at day 1 (day of hospital admission for HSCT), brushing frequency (patient recorded diary), plaque scores (Plaque Control Index) and oral mucositis (Oral Mucositis Nursing Index) were recorded daily. Data for days 1 to 17 were analysed using regression analysis and general linear models.
Results:
Few patients maintained 4 times per day brushing, but most brushed at least 2 times per day throughout the study. In PT, overall plaque scores were lower by 6.98% (p = .006) as compared to MT. No differences were seen in OM scores between the groups (p = .968). A small but significant positive correlation was found between plaque scores and OM severity: R2 =0.15 (p < .01).
Conclusions:
Powered tooth brushing resulted in lower plaque scores, but was not associated with reduced OM severity. Individual plaque scores were positively related to OM severity.
