The importance of measuring toothpaste abrasivity in both a quantitative and qualitative way

Abstract Objective. To evaluate the relative abrasivity of different toothpastes and polishing pastes both qualitatively and quantitatively. Materials and methods. Acrylic plates were exposed to brushing in a brushing machine with a toothpaste/water slurry for 1 and 6 h. Twelve different toothpastes were used and also four different polishing pastes. The results were evaluated using a profilometer after 1 and 6 h of brushing (corresponding to 2000 and 12 000 double strokes, respectively). A surface roughness value (Ra-value) and also a volume loss value were calculated from the profilometer measurements. These values were then correlated to each other. An unpaired t-test for the difference in the abrasion values between the toothpastes and the abrasion values over time was used. Results. The polishing paste RDA® 170 yielded higher Ra-values than RDA 250®, both after 1 and 6 h of brushing (1.01 ± 0.22 and 8.99 ± 1.55 compared to 0.63 ± 0.26 and 7.83 ± 5.89, respectively) as well as volume loss values (3.71 ± 0.17 and 20.20 ± 2.41 compared to 2.15 ± 1.41 and 14.79 ± 11.76, respectively), thus poor correlations between the RDA and Ra and Volume loss values were shown. Among the toothpastes, Apotekets® showed the highest Ra value after 1 h of brushing and Pepsodent® whitening after 6 h of brushing. Pepsodent® whitening also showed the highest volume loss values, both after 1 and 6 h of brushing. Conclusion. This study emphasizes the importance of not only considering the RDA value, but also a roughness value, when describing the abrasivity of a toothpaste. Furthermore, it can be concluded that so called 'whitening' toothpastes do not necessarily have a higher abrasive effect than other toothpastes.