[Consensus of Chinese stomatological experts on the efficacy of toothpaste and functional toothpaste].

Toothpaste is an oral health care product that can be used to help cleansing teeth and improve oral hygiene. Currently use of toothpaste has been transferred from the conventional objective of oral hygiene to the new era of prevention and intervention of oral diseases. Therefore, functional toothpaste has been developed in a fast way. It is imperative to investigate toothpaste, because the wise use of specific functional toothpaste could prevent or reduce oral diseases such as dental caries and periodontal diseases, improve people's oral and general health and save social healthcare resources. However, dental professionals have various understandings on the efficacy and differentiations of functional toothpastes. For example, there are different explanations for the efficacy of functional toothpastes, which may exaggerate, depreciate or deny their clinical efficacy. To ensure the highest level of the patient's safety and professional satisfaction for both toothpaste products and related informatics, and also to make the dentists be acquainted with the updated research findings, developments and standards, it is necessary to review systematically the efficacy of functional toothpaste.