Short Communication
Influence of the Tip Shape of a Tongue Brush on Removing Bacteria from a Culture Medium and Residual Bacteria after Cleaning
2020 Volume 24 Issue 2 Pages 170-176
Details
2020 Volume 24 Issue 2 Pages 170-176
Tongue cleaners come in various shapes, such as nylon brushes like a toothbrush, scraper type, and brushes implanted with fine nylon looped bristles. Although nylon looped brushes are effective when the tongue coating is thick, there is a possibility that contamination remains even after the brush seems to be clean.
We therefore compared the bacterial removal effect of nylon looped brushes with the one of brushes in which part of the loops was cut (loop-cut brush). We also evaluated the amount of bacterial residue after washing by hand for 0, 5, 10, and 30 s under running water.
A looped bristle brush (W-1 brush, SHIKIEN) and a loop-cut bristle brush were used to scrape the surface of brain heart infusion (BHI) agar medium seeded with Staphylococcus aureus, and the number of bacteria removed by the two brushes was compared. Additionally, to examine different methods for cleaning the brushes, we compared the number of bacteria remaining on the brushes after washing by hand under running water for 0, 5, 10, and 30 s, and placing the brush under running water alone for 10 s.
There was no statistically significant difference between the median number of bacteria removed by the looped bristle brush (2.0×1011 cfu/mL) and the loop-cut bristle brush (2.1×1011 cfu/mL), indicating that there is no difference in the bacterial removal ability between these two brushes. Investigation of the cleaning method revealed that the number of bacteria adhering to the brushes was significantly decreased after washing by hand for 5, 10, and 30 s when compared with no cleaning for both the looped bristle brush and the loop-cut bristle brush. The bacterial count of the cut bristle brush decreased by 99.9% after 5 s of washing by hand, and removed further after 10 s of washing. There was no statistically significant difference between washing by hand for 10 and 30 s for the loop-cut bristle brush. The loop-cut bristle brush had fewer bacteria attached after washing by hand than the looped bristle brush, and rubbing for at least 5 s under running water reaches 99.9% bacteria removal.
Therefore, the loop-cut bristle brush may be a superior shape because it has a low likelihood of becoming an infection source, and its bacterial removal ability was similar to that of the looped bristle brush.
