Manual and Electric Toothbrush Comparison

This review compared the effectiveness of plaque removal by manual and electric toothbrushes by assessing gum health, stain, and calculus removal, reliability and cost.

There is moderate quality evidence that electric toothbrushes clean plaque better than a manual toothbrush in the short term. The study included 51 trials and 4,624 patients.

The rate of plaque removal increased from 11% to 21% when patients used the electric toothbrush over 3 months ( to 6 months).

References

Yaacob, Worthington, Deacon,Deery, Walmsley, Robinson, Gleeny

Powered versus Manual Toothbrushing for Oral Health.  Cochrane Database of Systemic Reviews 2014, Issue 6.