Antibacterial Efficacy of Microwave, Ultraviolet Rays and Chlorhexidine in Reducing the Contamination of Toothbrushes in Children

Authors

1 Dentist at Egyptian Ministry of Health, Egypt

2 Associate professor and Head of Pedodontics and Oral Health Department, Faculty of Dental Medicine for Girls, Al-Azhar University, Cairo, Egypt.

3 Lecturer of Pedodontics and Oral Health, Faculty of Dental Medicine for Girls, Al-Azhar University, Cairo, Egypt.

Abstract

Purpose: Evaluation of the bacterial contamination of toothbrushes, and comparing the antibacterial effect of microwaves radiation, ultraviolet radiation, and Chlorhexidine gluconate on toothbrushes among children. Subjects and methods: Twenty-seven normal apparently healthy children aged between 6-12 years from both genders were involved in this study and equally divided into three groups regarding the technique of toothbrush sterilization. Group I: included children’s toothbrushes were exposed to microwave radiation for 3 minutes. Group ІІ: included children’s toothbrushes were exposed to UV radiation for 12 minutes. Group ІІІ: included children’s toothbrushes were immersed in chlorhexidine mouthwash 0.12% for 20 hours. All toothbrushes were collected after the children were instructed to brush their teeth with them for one week twice daily. Results: Significant decrease in overall bacterial count across the three study groups after toothbrush sterilization. However, when compared with ultraviolet and microwave radiation, chlorohexidine demonstrated a significantly lower overall bacterial count. and there was a substantial difference between the three groups in terms of statistics. Conclusion: This study proved efficacy for the reduction of total bacterial count after sterilization of toothbrushes with chlorhexidine having the highest reduction rate among the three studied groups.

Keywords

Files

Share

How to cite

Statistics