MANUAL TOOTHBRUSHES - BRISTLES QUALITY

Abstract

Introduction: Today's market offers to users a large number of manual toothbrushes in attractive colors, different head designs, handles, bristle cuts as well as softness, and various prices too. However, is an expensive, ecological, or brightly coloured toothbrush of a good quality and does it not harm us? A quality toothbrush is defined as a toothbrush whose bristles do not damage the gums or hard dental tissues. This study is focused on the quality of bristle ends processing. The aim is to show the reader and compare the bristle quality of six different products sold on our market.Methods: Six toothbrushes from six different manufacturers were selected for this study: A. Curaprox 5460; B. Dr.Max PRO32 Extra soft 5400; C. Tepe Compact x - soft; D. Spokar X 5500 Ultrasoft; E. SOFTdent ECO Ultrasoft; F. Elmex Ultrasoft. Brushes were selected with the same parameters such as straight cutting and softness of the bristles. The quality of brush bristle ends was detected using stereo microscopyand electron microscopy.Results: The selected manual brushes show a large discrepancy in the quality of the processing of the bristles not only in the comparison amongst the observed brushes, but the quality of the bristles is not consistent even within one observation of a single brush.Conclusion: The observation clearly demonstrated a significantly higher quality of the bristles processing of the Tepe Compact x - soft brush compared to other brushes.

Keywords

• toothbrushes
• manual
• bristles quality
• bristles ends