Prior gum disease increases cancer risk

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Researchers have found that postmenopausal women who had prior gum disease have a higher risk of cancer. The study was conducted by researchers at the University at Buffalo. The study is the first to find an association between periodontal disease and gallbladder cancer risk in women or men. The study also provided useful information on a number of cancer-specific sites. The study included 65,869 postmenopausal women who were part of the Women’s Health Initiative, an ongoing national prospective study designed to investigate factors affecting disease and death risk in older U.S. women. Most women were non-Hispanic and the average age was 68. Participants were asked “has a dentist or dental hygienist ever told you that you had periodontal or gum disease?” Those women who had a history of gum disease had a 14% increased risk of overall cancer. A total of 7,149 … Read more

Toothpaste with Bioactive Glass

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A research group at Queen Mary University of London have developed a very fast dissolving ‘bioactive’ glass that will be put into a toothpaste to repair decayed teeth. This builds upon the researchers prior work with bioactive glass that release fluoride, forming a chemical that mimics tooth and bone mineral. The new toothpaste with bioactive glass developed using chlorine instead of flourine. The chlorine atom and ions are much bigger, which enables them to incorporate much more of it into the glass. The toothpaste is designed for people who don’t want to use a fluoride-containing toothpaste and for areas of the world where the water is naturally fluoridated. This toothpaste is unique because it can put back the mineral lost from your teeth after consumption of an acidic drink, but without the use of fluoride. The researchers feel that everyone can possibly … Read more

Flying after Wisdom Teeth Removal

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After having wisdom teeth removal some patients like to know if it is okay for them to fly on an airplane. Depending on whom one turns to for advice it is possible to receive mixed messages regarding if it is safe to fly or not after wisdom teeth surgery. According to one article titled “Cabin crew reveal the one thing you should NEVER do before flying” by Elly Blake appearing in the Express (Feb. 15, 2018) having any sort of dental work 24 to 48 hours prior to a flight could be dangerous according to airplane cabin crew. They said that in horror stories some passengers have reported unimaginable pain caused by changes in air pressure due to altitude changes which impact small pockets of gas trapped in teeth. However, in other cases people have reported feeling just fine flying … Read more

Exploring events that should never happen in Dentistry

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Recently a few interesting articles have been published to explore what are called never events or serious patient safety incidents that should not occur if appropriate preventive measures are implemented in dentistry. However, these articles and their analysis are all tailored to the U.K. The first article is titled “Patient safety in dentistry: development of a candidate ‘never event’ list for primary care” written by Black et al. in the British Dental Journal (vol. 222, no. 10, pp. 782-788, Published May 26, 2017). The second article is titled “Developing agreement on never events in primary care dentistry: an international eDelphi study,” written by Ensaldo-Carrasco et al. in the British Dental Journal (vol. 224, no. 9, pp. 733-740, Published May 11, 2018). Prior to these articles there was not much clear research done on never events in dentistry. The best article … Read more

Comparing Injectable Anesthetics for Dentistry

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A review articled carried out by the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews titled “Injectable local anaesthetic agents for dental anaesthesia (Review)” written by St. George et al. in 2018 (no. 7, art. no. CD006487) explored the success of local anesthetics used by dentists. Procedures in dentistry that use local anesthetics include endodontic treatment, placement of restorations, and extraction of teeth. The researchers wanted to determine if one form of anesthetic worked better than others in different scenarios. The researchers defined success for an anesthetic based on the absence of pain during the procedure. They sought out to also explore the speed of onset and duration of anesthesia as well as the systemic and local adverse effects. The researchers had a very thorough search that resulted in 123 studies which was later reduced down to 68 studies and compared 14 different … Read more