A study on effectiveness of dentifrice containing dextranase and its influence on oral mucosa

Abstract

Oral hygiene has been widely cared of by means of a mechanical and physical practice with tooth-brushes as a daily habit. But conventional methods cannot be effective enough, as the fact of a recent increase in caries and periodontal diseases has shown.The author considered it necessary to approach oral hygiene from aspects of chemical and biochemical actions in addition to from conventional aspects of mechanical and physical ones. Therefore, Dextranase, expected to have mentioned new effects, was added to a dentifrice, and another dentifrice not containing the above agent was used as a control, and two problems, how effective it would be and if it would be safe or not, were examined.Fifty-eight healthy adult women were selected as subjects: 29 of them were asked to use a dentifrice containing Dextranase for continually one month; rest of 29 were asked to use a control dentifrice for the same period.A health examination was conducted five times at intervals of a week, and DI, CI, OHI, and P.H.P. index were recorded. As a result, the test dentifrice containing Dextranase was found effective and a statistically significant difference was observed in contrast to the control dentifrice. Moreover, it was confirmed that a continual use over the period of one month did not resulted in oral anomaly either subjectively nor objectively.Then, 115 healthy adult women were seleted and divided into two groups. The same two kinds of dentifrice as used in the first experiment for effectiveness, one containing Dextranase and the other not were used in this second experiment again. Subjective and objective conditions of all subjects were observed after three hours of use of dentifrice.One week late, two groups were crossed each other, and the previous test group used a control dentifrice, and the previous control group a test dentifrice. In the same way, an examination was done after three hours of use of dentifrice.Consequently, abnormal conditions such as oral pain, oral ill feelings, or oral stripping were not observed.Therefore, a dentifrice containing Dextranase was found effective in plaque removal and caries prevention.