Abstract
The anti-bacterial efficacy of 78 tooth pastes collected from 16 countries was studied in vitro against the following representative strains of oral dental plaqueforming microorganisms:Streptococcus mutans, Streptococcus sanguis, Streptococcus salivarius, Streptococcus mitis, Actinomyces viscosus and Actinomyces naeslundii.The results obtained by the disk method revealed that the supernates of 71 (93%)pastes had some anti-bacterial efficacy against the above strains. Minimum inhibitory concentrations (MIC) were also measured in the ten most highly effective pastes.S. mutans, A. viscocus and A. naeslundii were found to be more sensitive against these pastes than other species.
All of the highly anti-bacteria l pastes were found to contain Sodium N-lauroyl salcocinate (SLS). The effect of SLS, however, was found not to be sufficient enough to account for the total anti-bacterial efficacy of each paste. The value of pH and the amount of F- of the paste solution were not related to the anti-bacterial efficacy.
The sediment of each paste showed no effect.
The value of MIC was found to increase with exposure time to the air.
