[Comparative studies of toothpastes and toothpaste ingredients in biological systems: 1. Can various toothpastes be differentiated by relative biological effectiveness in cell culture studies?].

The cytotoxicity of 15 commercial toothpastes was examined in human epithelial cell cultures. The following parameters were evaluated: protein concentration, DNA-synthesis, cell morphology and autoradiography. In comparison to the control cell culture, one toothpaste had no influence on the cell growth at all. The other pastes caused a more or less strong growth inhibition, which also depended on the concentration of the toothpaste suspension. The presented investigations showed that the cytotoxicity tests applied to toothpastes yielded a good validity.