Tooth-surface-polishing agents are a material for tooth surface polishing for dental hygienists to use after removing plaque, exogenous deposit, and tartar that cannot be removed by patient self-care. We performed cytotoxicity tests of 5 products among clinically available products. As a result, when a tooth-cleaning agent was mixed with the assay medium as a 1/5-concentration sample, cell viability reduced in proportion to sample addition. As there were marked differences in cell viability among the products used in this experiment, dental hygienists should understand the characteristics of a tooth-cleaning agent before use. They are routinely used in current dental clinical practice, but few studies have reported their biological influence.

Chinese-hamster-derived V79 cells and Dulbecco's Modified Eagle's Medium (DMEM) containing 10% fetal bovine serum as an assay medium were used. Cell viability was investigated using the three-dimensional culture method with collagen and MTT assay. The results showed marked differences in cell viability among the samples after cell exposure to each tooth-surface-polishing agents at a 1/5 concentration. It is necessary to understand the characteristics of various tooth-surface-polishing agents and select the most appropriate one for each purpose.