Surgery Free Wisdom Tooth Bud Ablation Treatment To One Day Replace Surgery?

by

An interesting article titled “Fully Guided Tooth Bud Ablation in Pigs Results in Complete Tooth Bud Removal and Molar Agenesis” appears in the Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery written by Leigh E. Colby and David P. Watson, Vol. 81, Issue 4, pp. 456-466, Apr. 2023, Published Dec. 16, 2022. The article seems to be a follow-up to a prior article discussed on this site in the post “Tooth bud abalation of wisdom teeth may be alternative to surgery in the future“. That study had shown that fully guided microwave tooth bud ablation (3TBA) could be used to successfully remove wisdom tooth tooth buds without damaging surrounding tissues in a study with 5 pigs. The most recent study used a 28-day longitudinal characterization study to determine if healing response following fully guided microwave ablation of tooth buds in pigs would result in … Read more

Reducing Anxiety in Wisdom Teeth Surgery using Diazepam and Buspirone

by

An interesting article titled “Comparative Evaluation of Efficacy of Oral Diazepam and Buspirone in Reducing Anxiety and Discomfort in Mandibular Third Molar Surgery- In Vivo Study,” by Mitra et al. appears in the Indian Journal of Public Health Research & Development (vol.10, no. 3, Mar. 2019, pp. 182-186). The article seeks to compare the effectiveness of diazepam and buspirone in reducing anxiety and discomfort in lower wisdom teeth removal. The authors were motivated to perform the study because dental anxiety has been reported to range from roughly 4% to 21%. Even more alarming is that up to nearly 50% of patients who have high anxiety have missed a dental appointment at one point. While non medication treatment options exist such as behavioral modification and hypnosis and guided relaxation, some patients may really only respond to medications. Benzodiazepines are the most … Read more

Periodontal Disease Bacteria Tied to Alzheimer’s Disease

by

An interesting article titled “Alzheimer’s Disease-Like Neurodegeneration in Porphyromonas gingivalis Infected Neurons with Persistent Expression of Active Gingipains” appears in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease written by Ursula Haditsch et al. (no. 75, pp. 1361–1376, 2020). The article seeks to explore the connections between Porphyromonas gingivalis (P. gingivalis), the main pathogen that causes chronic periodontitis, and Alzheimer’s disease (AD). In the article, the researchers sought to show that intraneuronal P. gingivalis and gingipain expression in vitro after infecting neurons derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC). The researchers looked at the effect of the bacteria on the neurons at 24, 48, and 72 hours. The researchers used transmission electron microscopy, confocal microscopy, and bacterial colony to cause infection. They monitored gingipain expression by immunofluorescence and RT-qPCR, and protease activity with activity-based probes. The researchers used immunofluorescence, western blot, and ELISA to … Read more

Reducing Anxiety among Pediatric Dental Patients

by

An interesting article titled “an Anxiety Reduction Program as an Alternative to General Anesthesia for the Anxious Pediatric Dental Patient” was presented on July 23, 2021, at the virtual session of the 2021 International Association for Dental Research (IADR)/AADR/CADR General Session written by Suher Baker and et al. The research set to investigate the efficacy of a systematic Anxiety Reduction Program (ARP) using progressive desensitization to reduce anxiety in children to a level that would allow dental treatment to be performed in-office without the use of general anesthesia. Dental anxiety has been covered on this site before see for example the post Dental Anxiety and Fear: Impact on Oral Health. Children are more likely to experience an unfavorable and unforeseen incident caused by an error or omission during dental treatment that has negative health consequencies. This is because children do … Read more

Iatrogenic Fracture of the Mandibular Angle During Wisdom Tooth Surgery

by

An interesting article titled “Iatrogenic Fracture of the Mandibular Angle During Excision of an Impacted Third Molar” appears in Cureus in August 04, 2022, written by Agrawal P, Jadhav A, Bhola N D (vol. 14, no. 8, pp. e27672). The article discusses a case of a 30 year old woman who had atrogenic mandibular angle fracture after having an impacted wisdom tooth removed. In the article, the authors mention of a 30 year old woman visited their outpatient department complaining of pain and swelling over the lower right side of her face with an inability to open her mouth and chew for the last four days. Prior to this, she had her lower right impacted wisdom tooth removed under local anesthesia. On exam, the woman was found to have an asymmetrical face due to swelling over the lower right region … Read more