A Japanese team had invented a synthetic paste that will make dental treatment painless. The paste is made of modified hydroxyapatite that is
A Japanese team had invented a synthetic paste that will make dental treatment painless. The paste is made of modified hydroxyapatite that is almost similar to natural tooth enamel, and can be applied on dental cavities to fill in the gap.
Conventionally, when dental caries affects a tooth, the affected part is removed and the gap is filled with a metal alloy or resin. At times such a procedure may require removing a part of the healthy tooth as well. The new paste will not require removal of tooth, whole or in parts, as it can be applied even in case of minute gaps existing in the early attack of dental caries. The paste encourages caries control by nanocrystalline growth with very little damage to tooth’s natural enamel.The study was conducted by the FAP Dental Institute of Tokyo and the results were published in the recent issue of Nature journal.
The paste was initially tested on a lower premolar tooth, where researchers have found out that in addition to repairing the cavity, the synthetic enamel had merged with the natural enamel and the paste had helped in making the teeth stronger. The only problem with the paste is the fact that it may cause inflammation when comes in direct contact with the gums.
Link:
http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nature/journal/v433/n7028/abs/433819a_fs.html
