Revolutionary Root Canal Treatment Using Prefabricated Blood Vessels

A new process using prefabricated blood vessels can revolutionize root canal treatment to create better long-term outcomes for patients and clinicians.

Root canal treatment is effective in saving an infected or decayed tooth. However, this age-old procedure can cause the teeth to become brittle and susceptible to fracture over time.//

A research team from OHSU in Portland, Oregon has developed a process by which they can engineer the new blood vessels in teeth, that could create better long-term outcomes for patients and clinicians.

Root Canal Treatment | Endodontic therapy
Root canal treatment is to save a badly infected tooth. The dentist call it endodontic therapy and they deep clean the infected root of the tooth.

‘Root canal treatment has been revolutionized by using prefabricated blood vessels to create better long-term outcomes for patients and clinicians.’

Their findings were published online in the journal Scientific Reports.

More than 15 million root canals are conducted annually in the United States. The current procedure involves removing infected dental tissues and replacing them with synthetic biomaterials covered by a protective crown.

"This process eliminates the tooth's blood and nerve supply, rendering it lifeless and void of any biological response or defense mechanism. Without this functionality, adult teeth may be lost much sooner, which can result in much greater concerns, such as the need for dentures or dental implants," says principal investigator Luiz Bertassoni, D.D.S., Ph.D., assistant professor of restorative dentistry in the OHSU School of Dentistry, and assistant professor of biomedical engineering in the OHSU School of Medicine.

Root Canal Treatment
Are you going to have root canal treatment? Refer to this cartoon display that uses slide animation along with text to simplify its complexity.

To address this issue, Bertassoni and colleagues used a 3D printing-inspired process -- based on their previous work fabricating artificial capillaries -- to create blood vessels in the lab.

They placed a fiber mold made of sugar molecules across the root canal of extracted human teeth and injected a gel-like material, similar to proteins found in the body, filled with dental pulp cells.

Tooth Decay - Causes, Symptoms, Diagnosis, Treatment & Prevention
Tooth decay in toddlers, children and adults, also called dental caries, is a bacterial infection causing demineralization and destruction of the hard tissues of the teeth.

The researchers removed the fiber to make a long microchannel in the root canal and inserted endothelial cells isolated from the interior lining of blood vessels. After seven days, dentin-producing cells proliferated near the tooth walls and artificial blood vessels formed inside the tooth.

"This result proves that fabrication of artificial blood vessels can be a highly effective strategy for fully regenerating the function of teeth," says Bertassoni, who also serves as an honorary lecturer in Bioengineering at University of Sydney-School of Dentistry.

Quiz on Dental Care
Dental care is an important part of a person's grooming and overall health. This quiz attempts to inform you about dental cavities and decays and also hopes to enlighten you with tips on safe guarding dental health which is primary to your well being.

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"We believe that this finding may change the way that root canal treatments are done in the future."

Source-Eurekalert