An in –vivo study on reduction of bacterial challenge and bristle protection with antibacterial tooth brush (miswak herb) in comparison with nano-silver tooth brush

Background: Oral health is an integral part of general health. It directly and indirectly reflects the overall well-being of an individual, thus maintaining oral hygiene becomes a crucial factor.Tooth brushing plays an important everyday role for personal oral hygiene and effective plaque removal. Regular toothbrush care and maintenance are also important considerations for sound oral hygiene. This study was designed to evaluate the antibacterial bristles self-protection among the Miswak stick, toothbrush with silver nanotechnology and regular toothbrush (as a control group). Materials and Methods: Thisstudy was conducted in vivo by randomly selected 30 volunteers without any reported systemic diseases and habits.Theyare divided into 3 group 10 in each group first group was given Miswak stick, the 2nd group was given regular toothbrush, and the last group was given silver care nano-silver coated toothbrush. Each subject was instructed to brush their teeth for 3min after signing a patientconsent. Part of the bristles was collected in different time duration to evaluate the antibacterial bristles protection among different kinds of brushes. Results: It was shown that the silver care toothbrush has the maximum bacterial reduction in the period of 24hrs followed by Miswak stick and the last was the regular toothbrush which showed minimum bacterial reduction. Conclusions: The present report indicates that silver tooth brush had the highest antibacterial self-bristles protection and the Miswak had moderate effect and the regular toothbrush had minimum effect.