Summary of Findings on Silicone Toothbrush Efficacy and Environmental Impact

A scoping review summarizing ten English-language studies on silicone toothbrushes, an underutilized tool in preventive oral care. The dataset, authored by Aoife Cummins and last updated in April 2026, analyzes findings on plaque removal, gingival trauma risk, and environmental impact. It addresses the global challenge of oral diseases affecting 3.5 billion people, with a focus on sustainable alternatives to conventional plastic toothbrushes.

Use Cases

• Benchmarking plaque removal efficacy of silicone versus conventional toothbrushes based on the review's findings.
• Assessing the risk of gingival trauma for specific populations like children or sensitive patients as mentioned in the description.
• Conducting comparative life-cycle assessments for oral hygiene products based on the environmental impact data.
• Identifying research gaps in preventive oral care tools for low- and middle-income countries as highlighted in the review.

Strengths

• Focuses on a specific, under-researched intervention (silicone toothbrushes) within a major public health domain.
• Systematically sourced from five databases with supplemental reference screening, suggesting a structured methodology.
• Released under a permissive CC-BY-4.0 license, facilitating reuse and redistribution.

Limitations

• Row count and column-level documentation are unknown, limiting suitability assessment and requiring manual inspection after download.
• Based on a limited corpus of only ten identified studies, indicating a nascent evidence base.
• The dataset is very small (13.5 KB), suggesting it contains summary-level findings rather than raw study data.

Provenance

Source

figshare

Collection Method

Systematic scoping review of five academic databases.

Time Range

null

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-22 17:25:56; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Global literature review, with noted disproportionate impact on low- and middle-income countries.