The results demonstrate that use of the stabilized 0.454% stannous fluoride/sodium hexametaphosphate dentifrice over a 6-month period provided statistically significant reductions in gingivitis, gingival bleeding, and plaque when compared with a negative control dentifrice.
Within the limits of the study protocol, the results demonstrated superior therapeutic benefits for the stabilized 0.454% stannous fluoride/sodium hexametaphosphate dentifrice in reducing gingivitis compared to the triclosan/copolymer control in this partially supervised study.
Varying examiner styles impact the structure of resulting data. Importantly, the implementation of arbitrary thresholds (e.g., 20%) regarding percent treatment differences between groups as a guideline for judging the clinical significance is scientifically unsupported. A more scientific criterion in the field of gingivitis clinical testing would be the independent demonstration of statistical superiority compared to a negative control and/or a demonstration of similar or superior efficacy to clinically proven positive controls. In addition, interexaminer calibration is a mechanism that can be utilized to minimize the impact of different examiner styles in clinical settings involving more than one examiner.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.