A team of researchers from the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada, report that they have been able to re-form dental tissue.
Using low-intensity pulsed ultrasound (LIPUS), Dr. Tarak El-Bialy, Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, and Jie Chen, PhD, and Ying Tsui, PhD, PEng, Faculty of Engineering, have created a miniaturized system-on-a-chip that offers a noninvasive and novel way to stimulate jaw growth and dental tissue healing.
The wireless design of the ultrasound transducer means the miniscule device will be able to fit comfortably inside a patient’s mouth while packed in biocompatible materials. The unit will be mounted easily on an orthodontic bracket or a plastic removable crown. The team also designed an energy sensor that will ensure that the LIPUS power is reaching the target area of the tooth roots within the bone.
TEC Edmonton, the University of Alberta’s exclusive technology transfer service provider, filed the first patent recently in the United States. The researchers are finishing the system-on-a-chip and hope to complete the miniaturized device by 2007.
"If the root is broken, it can now be fixed," said Dr. El-Bialy. "And because we can regrow the teeth root, a patient could have his own tooth rather than foreign objects in his mouth."
The device is aimed at people experiencing dental root resorption, a common effect of mechanical or chemical injury to dental tissue caused by diseases and endocrine disturbances. Mechanical injury from wearing orthodontic braces causes progressive root resorption, limiting the time that braces can be worn. This new device will work to counteract the destructive resorptive process while allowing the patient to continue wearing the braces. With approximately 5 million people in North America wearing orthodontic braces, the market size for the device could be about 1.4 million people.
Dr. El-Bialy first discovered the formation of new dental tissue after using ultrasound on rabbits. After observing the surprising positive results, he moved onto humans and found similar results. He also has shown that LIPUS can improve jaw growth in patients with hemifacial microsomia, a congenital syndrome in which one side of the child’s jaw or face is underdeveloped compared with the other, normal side. These patients usually undergo many surgeries to improve their facial appearance.
"After proving it worked, we looked at creating a smaller ultrasound carrier [with which] we can take the patient out as a variable," said Dr. El-Bialy. "Before this, a patient ha[d] to hold the ultrasound for 20 minutes a day for a year, and that is a lot to ask."
The researchers are working on turning their prototype into a market-ready model and expect the device to be ready for the public within the next two years.
