The aim of this study was to develop another method to study the characteristics of toothbrush bristles and thus to evaluate the applicability of laser-scanning-microscopy fot the assessment of bristle rounding. Toothbrushes of the brand Dr. Best flex plus, short head, with soft and medium bristle hardness were worn in an automatic brushing machine.Depending on group assignment were the support weights 275g or 550g. The cleaning process took place twice daily, on plastic embedded bovine incisors, with a minimum interval of four hours. A toothpaste-saliva-mixture was used as a cleaning medium. The brush heads were examine in their original condition, after 90 and 180 days of wear under the laser-scanning-microscope 510 meta. After scanning the tufts through the laser and creating a 3dimensional image using a computer, the recordings could be revised with the image editing ptogram AxioVision LE. The resulting images were compared with each other and analyzed with light microscopy and scanning electron micrographs. Conclusion of this study is, that the methodology of the laser-scanning-microskop is not suitable at this stage for the analysis of bristle ends.
