Wisdom Teeth

Is it Possible to Regrow Teeth Enamel?

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According to the National Institutes of Health the most prevalent form of chronic disease is tooth decay. Janet Moradian-Oldak at USC has  investigated methods to regrow tooth enamel which is a difficult undertaking as tooth enamel is not a living tissue. She collaborated with Sauma Prajapati and others to investigate matrix metalloproteinase-20, an enzyme found only in teeth which facilitate organized enamel crystal formation. Her team is the first to define the function of an enzyme for preventing protein occlusion inside a crystal. MMP-20 is released at a very early stage of enamel formation. MMP-20 chops up proteins during the crystallization of enamel. Together with other enzymes, it gets rid of ‘sludge’ so the enamel making cells in the body can add more mineral and make enamel, the hardest bioceramic in the human body. The team also looked an amelogenin-chitosan hydrogel which could repair early tooth decay … Read more

Does the Sound of the Toothbrush Brushing Effect Quality?

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A group  of researchers in Japan have discovered that how effectively we clean our teeth and how satisfied we are with quality of the brushing depends on the sound of the bristles scrubbing against the enamel.  The team used a tiny microphone in a modified toothbrush to ‘sample’ the sound being made in the mouth during brushing and to modulate it and then feed that sound back to a group of volunteers via headphones to see what effect the sound has on cleaning efficacy and satisfaction. The team found that if they manipulated the pitch, or loudness and frequency, of the brushing sound they could change the volunteers’ perception of comfort experienced and accomplishment of brushing. It was also demonstrated that if they gradually increased the frequency as teeth cleaning progressed, the volunteers felt like the process was more comfortable and at the end of … Read more

No Drill Dentistry Can Prevent Tooth Decay

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Research published in Community Dentistry and Oral Epidemiology has shown that the need for fillings can be reduced by 30 to 50% through preventative oral care. This means that many previous fillings are not needed when dental decay occurs. As such a preventative approach can be beneficial when compared to current dental practices. Dentistry has been traditionally practiced with the believe that tooth decay rapidly progressed and the best way to manage it was to identify early decay and remove it quickly to prevent the tooth surface form developing cavities. After the decay is removed the tooth is restored with a filling material. Fifty years of research studies have shown that decay is not always progressive and develops more slowly than previously thought. It can take an average of four to eight years for decay to progress from the tooth’s outer layer to the … Read more

Complications Associated with Coronectomy

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An interesting article titled “What Are the Types and Frequencies of Complications Associated With Mandibular Third Molar Coronectomy? A Follow-Up Study,” appears in the 2015 Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery (vol. 73, pp. 1246-1253) and written by Giuseppe Monaco. The article explores the likelyhood of complications occuring with coronectomy procedures. Coronectomy is an alternative surgical procedure to extract wisdom teeth with roots that are close to the mandibular canal. The article describes a research study  to determine whether coronectomy decreased neurologic damage in cases of mandibular third molars in close proximity to the inferior alveolar nerve. The study looked at 94 healthy patients with a mean age of ~30 who had 116 mandibular third molars (wisdom teeth) treated with coronectomy. A total of 28 patients dropped out of the study during the 3 year follow up period. Of the … Read more

Reputation of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery

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An interesting article titled “Reputation of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery in the UK:the patients’ perspective,” appears in the 2015 British Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery (vol. 53, pp. 321–325) and written by M. Abu -Serriah and et al. The article seeks to explore the reputation of oral and maxillofacial surgery (OMFS). The authors state “One of these is the fact that professional reputations are gifted by salient stakeholders rather than being controlled directly by the professionals themselves, and an important group of stakeholders that has been reported (in publications on professions in medicine) to cause feelings of deprofessionalisation is made up of patients.” In the U.K. the OMFS has shifted to a medical base. OMFS overlaps with other surgical specialties, such as plastic surgery, ear, nose, and throat (ENT), and dentistry. Patients and the public can be confused by the inconsistent use … Read more