Commentary

This short-term trial of powered versus manual brushes was published after the completion of the recent Cochrane review1 and may be included when this is updated in 2 years' time – although the authors will probably need to supply the Cochrane reviewers with additional data not presented in the paper.

This trial, as with most of those in the Cochrane review,1 is of short duration and, depending on your perspective, either indicates that powered brushes are no more effective than powered brushes or, as the authors of the paper conclude, powered brushes are as effective as manual brushes. Either way this does not seem to provide much encouragement to practitioners to recommend powered toothbrushes. Indeed, the only statistically significant finding in the study was the finding of lower plaque levels in the manual toothbrushing group at 8 weeks.

Of the 29 trials included in the Cochrane review1 only one was of 12 months' duration and one of 11 months, the remainder being rather short-term, as was this trial. As the majority of people will wish to keep their teeth for a lifetime, we need to see better-quality trials of longer duration to assess both the effectiveness of powered brushes and the cost of ownership.

As the Cochrane review summarises information from several studies it is unlikely that this trial adds significantly to their findings of a marginal benefit on oral health of some types of powered over manual toothbrushes.

Practice point

  • This study probably does not alter the Cochrane review finding that some types of powered toothbrushes have a small advantage over manual ones.