NCT04120948

Laser Tongue Debridement for Oral Malodor

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 54 (actual)
• Sponsor: New York Head & Neck Institute · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years – 70 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

Malodor is a multifactorial condition with oral pathology representing the main culprit and the tongue being the first to second contributor to the malodor. Bacterial load can represent a quantifiable measure regardless of the original pathology. It is hypothesized that reduction in malodor can be represented by tongue changes both in appearance, bacterial and biofilm load reduction (measured by CFU and volatile gases measurement), organoleptic measurement and subjective improvement. Methods: A randomized controlled prospective study under IRB approval. Diagnostic criteria for enrollment and follow up were organoleptic test by 2 judges, halimeter reading, tongue colores changes HALT questionnaire and direct aerobic and anaerobic tongue cultures measured by CFU. Patients were treated with laser tongue debridement (LTD) with an Er,Cr:YSGG solid state laser has been shown to be effective in biofilm reduction.

Conditions

• Halitosis

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
DEVICE	Waterlase Express Laser System	10-minute treatment with the Waterlase Express (Biolase, Irvine CA). The dorso-posterior surface of the tongue is treated with the laser in 10 passes of 60 seconds each with 10 seconds of rest in between. Laser settings were 60μs pulse width, 4W, 40Hz, 10% air and 5% water irrigation. An MC12 sapphire laser tip (Biolase, Irvine CA) is held 3mm away from the tongue in a constant sweeping motion during treatment with passes overlapping passes in alternate direction, side to side motion and front to back motion with laser fluence on the tongue surface calculated at 3J/cm2. The settings were non ablative and non thermal.
DEVICE	Tongue scraper	mechanical scraping of the dorso-posterior surface of the tongue

Timeline

• Start date: 2018-08-01
• Primary completion: 2018-10-01
• Completion: 2018-10-01
• First posted: 2019-10-09
• Last updated: 2019-10-09

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States

Regulatory

• FDA-regulated device study