Home use of interdental cleaning devices, in addition to toothbrushing, for preventing and controlling periodontal diseases and dental caries

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Dental caries (tooth decay) and periodontal diseases (gingivitis and periodontitis) affect the majority of people worldwide, and treatment costs place a significant burden on health services. Decay and gum disease can cause pain, eating and speaking difficulties, low self-esteem, and even tooth loss and the need for surgery. As dental plaque is the primary cause, self-administered daily mechanical disruption and removal of plaque is important for oral health. Toothbrushing can remove supragingival plaque on the facial and lingual/palatal surfaces, but special devices (such as floss, brushes, sticks, and irrigators) are often recommended to reach into the interdental area. OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the effectiveness of interdental cleaning devices used at home, in addition to toothbrushing, compared with toothbrushing alone, for preventing and controlling periodontal diseases, caries, and plaque. A secondary objective was to compare different interdental cleaning devices with each other. SEARCH METHODS: Cochrane Oral Health's Information Specialist searched: Cochrane Oral Health's Trials Register (to 16 January 2019), the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) (the Cochrane Library, 2018, Issue 12), MEDLINE Ovid (1946 to 16 January 2019), Embase Ovid (1980 to 16 January 2019) and CINAHL EBSCO (1937 to 16 January 2019). The US National Institutes of Health Trials Registry (ClinicalTrials.gov) and the World Health Organization International Clinical Trials Registry Platform were searched for ongoing trials. No restrictions were placed on the language or date of publication. SELECTION CRITERIA: Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) that compared toothbrushing and a home-use interdental cleaning device versus toothbrushing alone or with another device (minimum duration four weeks). DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS: At least two review authors independently screened searches, selected studies, extracted data, assessed studies' risk of bias, and assessed evidence certainty as high, moderate, low or very low, according to GRADE. We extracted indices measured on interproximal surfaces, where possible. We conducted random-effects meta-analyses, using mean differences (MDs) or standardised mean differences (SMDs). MAIN RESULTS: We included 35 RCTs (3929 randomised adult participants). Studies were at high risk of performance bias as blinding of participants was not possible. Only two studies were otherwise at low risk of bias. Many participants had a low level of baseline gingival inflammation.Studies evaluated the following devices plus toothbrushing versus toothbrushing: floss (15 trials), interdental brushes (2 trials), wooden cleaning sticks (2 trials), rubber/elastomeric cleaning sticks (2 trials), oral irrigators (5 trials). Four devices were compared with floss: interdental brushes (9 trials), wooden cleaning sticks (3 trials), rubber/elastomeric cleaning sticks (9 trials) and oral irrigators (2 trials). Another comparison was rubber/elastomeric cleaning sticks versus interdental brushes (3 trials).No trials assessed interproximal caries, and most did not assess periodontitis. Gingivitis was measured by indices (most commonly, Löe-Silness, 0 to 3 scale) and by proportion of bleeding sites. Plaque was measured by indices, most often Quigley-Hein (0 to 5). PRIMARY OBJECTIVE: comparisons against toothbrushing aloneLow-certainty evidence suggested that flossing, in addition to toothbrushing, may reduce gingivitis (measured by gingival index (GI)) at one month (SMD -0.58, 95% confidence interval (CI) -1.12 to -0.04; 8 trials, 585 participants), three months or six months. The results for proportion of bleeding sites and plaque were inconsistent (very low-certainty evidence).Very low-certainty evidence suggested that using an interdental brush, plus toothbrushing, may reduce gingivitis (measured by GI) at one month (MD -0.53, 95% CI -0.83 to -0.23; 1 trial, 62 participants), though there was no clear difference in bleeding sites (MD -0.05, 95% CI -0.13 to 0.03; 1 trial, 31 participants). Low-certainty evidence suggested interdental brushes may reduce plaque more than toothbrushing alone (SMD -1.07, 95% CI -1.51 to -0.63; 2 trials, 93 participants).Very low-certainty evidence suggested that using wooden cleaning sticks, plus toothbrushing, may reduce bleeding sites at three months (MD -0.25, 95% CI -0.37 to -0.13; 1 trial, 24 participants), but not plaque (MD -0.03, 95% CI -0.13 to 0.07).Very low-certainty evidence suggested that using rubber/elastomeric interdental cleaning sticks, plus toothbrushing, may reduce plaque at one month (MD -0.22, 95% CI -0.41 to -0.03), but this was not found for gingivitis (GI MD -0.01, 95% CI -0.19 to 0.21; 1 trial, 12 participants; bleeding MD 0.07, 95% CI -0.15 to 0.01; 1 trial, 30 participants).Very-low certainty evidence suggested oral irrigators may reduce gingivitis measured by GI at one month (SMD -0.48, 95% CI -0.89 to -0.06; 4 trials, 380 participants), b