A clinical study on the control of dental plaque using an electronic toothbrush with piezo-electric element.

: A double-blind clinical study was conducted to compare the plaque-removing efficiency of a newly designed electronic toothbrush to that of a placebo, conventional toothbrush. Twenty-six students were selected at Asahi University, School of Dentistry in Japan. The subjects were divided into two groups, one which used the electronic toothbrush and the other which used the placebo toothbrush. The subjects served as their own control by brushing manually for 3 minutes. The plaque elimination ratio, however, showed no significant difference between the testing and the control group. The main conclusion of this study is that an electronic toothbrush is not superior to the conventional toothbrush.