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Revista Portuguesa de Estomatologia,
Medicina Dentária e Cirurgia Maxilofacial

rev port estomatol med dent cir maxilofac. 2019;60(3):125-129

Original research

Effectiveness of tongue scraper in reducing halitosis
in orthodontic patients: a clinical study

a
b
a
Mônica Gentil Mattos , Aline de Almeida Neves , Orlando Motohiro Tanaka ,
c
a
Lucianne Cople Maia , Raildo Silva Coqueiro , Matheus Melo Pithon a,c, *
a Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
b Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Paraná (PUC-PR), Curitiba, Paraná, Brazil
c Southwest Bahia State University (UESB), Jequié, Bahia, Brazil

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t
Article history: Aims: The study aimed to evaluate the effect of tongue-scraping procedures as part of an oral
Received 17 April 2019 hygiene education program on patients with fixed conventional orthodontic appliances who
Accepted 12 October 2019 were affected by oral malodor.
Available online 29 October 2019 Methods: A sample of 40 fixed-orthodontic patients (14 to 18 years old) was recruited in a
private dentistry office. Participants were included in an oral-hygiene education program,
Keywords: and then data were collected, based on interviews, tongue coating detection, and halitosis
Halitosis measurement. After 27 days, these parameters were evaluated again. Data normality was
Oral Health Education evaluated by the Shapiro-Wilk test for the quantitative variables. The difference between
Orthodontics before and after the education intervention was tested by the McNemar test, the Kappa
statistic for the categorical variables, and the Wilcoxon test for the quantitative variable.
Significance was determined at a 5% (α=0.05) confidence level.
Results: The oral hygiene program applied to orthodontic patients positively impacted on
halitosis self-perception, oral malodor measurement (75%), and tongue coating score (100%).
Conclusions: The oral hygiene program, including tongue-scraping procedures, reduced
bad odor among orthodontic patients. (Rev Port Estomatol Med Dent Cir Maxilofac.
2019;60(3):125-129)
© 2019 Sociedade Portuguesa de Estomatologia e Medicina Dentária.
Published by SPEMD. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: matheuspithon@gmail.com (Matheus Melo Pithon).
http://doi.org/10.24873/j.rpemd.2019.10.459
1646-2890/© 2019 Sociedade Portuguesa de Estomatologia e Medicina Dentária. Published by SPEMD.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).