Powered toothbrushes show a modest benefit over manual toothbrushes - best electric toothbrush for plaque

Data sources include the trial register of the Cochrane Oral Health Group, the central register of Cochrane controlled trials, Medline, EMbase, and CINAHL.
In addition, the manufacturer of electric toothbrushes was contacted for further published and unpublished trials.
If participants were randomly assigned, they were conducted in public, subjects had uncompromising manual flexibility, and a comparison of manual and electric brushing under supervision was made for at least 4 weeks, the main result was the change in plaque and gums during this period.
Data extraction and synthesis of six reviewers independently extract information in duplicate.
The plaque and gums index of each study were expressed as standard values.
The effect measurement of each element
The average difference between the standard and the corresponding 95% confidence interval is analyzed by using randomeffect models.
Potential sources of heterogeneity were studied, and sensitivity analysis was conducted on items for quality and publication bias assessment.
A total of 29 trials (
Including 2547 participants
Provide data for meta-analysis.
A brush using a rotational oscillation action is more effective than a manual brush in removing more plaque and reducing gum inflammationand long-term (Figure 1).
At 3 months, the plaque decreased by 11%, and the gums decreased by 6%.
At more than 3 months, the plaque decreased by 7%, and the gums decreased by 17%.
Sensitivity analysis showed that the results were robust when selecting high quality trials.
There is no evidence of publication bias.
Conclusion compared with manual brushing, electric toothbrushes with rotating oscillation significantly reduce plaque and gum inflammation, although the magnitude is small.
Greater normalization of the observation and design of methodological guidelines will be applied to future trials and meta-analyses.