Background: Toothpaste manufacturers encourage through aggressive marketing strategies the overconsumption of fluoridated dentifrices. There are conflicting results regarding fluoride intake from toothpastes in children.
Aim: The aim of this systematic review and meta-analysis was to determine whether dentifrice flavour increases fluoride ingestion by children.
Design: We included clinical trials on children that evaluated the use of flavoured dentifrice - FD vs regular dentifrice - RD to identify the fluoride intake. An electronic search was performed in PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, The Cochrane Library, LILACS/BBO, and grey literature followed by manual search. The methodological quality of the studies was assessed using the Cochrane Collaboration common scheme for bias and ROBINS-I tool. Data were analysed in subgroups such as low (G1) and ordinary (G2) fluoride concentrations of dentifrices. We carried out heterogeneity and sensitive analyses.
Results: For G1, the fluoride intake from RD was significantly higher than from FD [standardised mean difference = -2.57 (-3.26, -1.89), P < 0.00001]. For G2, the fluoride ingestion from RD was significantly higher than from FD [mean difference = -0.00 (-0.00, -0.00), P = 0.02].
Conclusions: There is evidence to support the null hypothesis that flavouring from dentifrice does not increase fluoride intake in young children.
© 2018 BSPD, IAPD and John Wiley & Sons A/S. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.