Reducing variability and choosing ideal subjects for experimental gingivitis studies.

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Toothpastes and Triclosan in this randomized controlled trial publication.

Who Took Part

The age groups tagged for this paper are adults and middle-aged adults, men only.

Subjects were required to be men aged between 25 and 50 years, in good general health with at least four sound teeth in one posterior quadrant of the mandible.

Subjects who were smokers, taking antibiotics, anti-inflammatory drugs or had any other medical, surgical or social condition making participation in the study inadvisable, were excluded.

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as a randomized and placebo-controlled study.

Because people in this Toothpastes study were split into groups at random, differences between the groups are less likely to reflect who happened to join each one.

A placebo (an inactive look-alike) gave the Toothpastes group a baseline to be compared against.

Subjects had previously participated in a 21-day experimental gingivitis study.

Subjects with the most gingivitis at the end of the previous study were invited to participate first, moving down the list until the required number of subjects had been achieved.

Subjects were randomly assigned to one of three toothpastes: Crest Gum Care, Mentadent P or a placebo (UK Signal).

What Was Measured

The subject headings attached to it are Anti-Infective Agents, Local, Citric Acid, Dental Plaque, Dental Plaque Index, Gingivitis, Patient Selection and Periodontal Index.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized and placebo-controlled study of Toothpastes and Triclosan.

Its findings take up roughly 11 sentences of the abstract and are left out here on purpose; the source paper is the place to read them.

The publication is from 2005 (Journal of clinical periodontology), a journal based in United States.

More context: all human trials.