Paradigm shift in dental care on the horizon: Is regrowing teeth as futuristic as it sounds?
Whether researchers can regenerate human teeth has long been a matter of speculation.
While modern solutions for tooth loss have helped patients recover some dental functionality, experts stressed that losing permanent teeth can contribute to poorer social and emotional health, worse chewing functionality, chronic diseases and premature mortality. They detailed that while good oral health can help preserve systemic health, dental decay and periodontal disease has been linked to a wide range of chronic diseases elsewhere in the body — including respiratory infections, cardiovascular disease and Alzheimer’s disease.
The experts noted that current treatments for dental decay involve crowns or fillings, which focus on repairing the teeth rather than restoring their functionality and often require repeated interventions because of the limited durability of dental materials. In addition, tooth extraction for teeth with extensive decay may come with a risk of peri-implantitis that can impact the health of the surrounding permanent teeth.
However, recent advances in regenerative medicine may bring the scientific community closer to regrowing human tooth tissue or entire teeth, according to a news article from the BBC. Recent research has explored the possibility of creating “living fillings” that would repair the dentin or enamel damaged by dental caries. Researchers found that the ameloblasts responsible for producing enamel die following tooth eruption. When they converted stem cells into both ameloblasts and odontoblasts in a laboratory environment, the combination led to the production of a tooth organoid capable of generating enamel proteins. Using their findings, the researchers emphasized the potential for the development of novel treatments for dental decay such as fillings comprising the enamel proteins, laboratory-grown teeth or even teeth regenerated in vivo.
The experts underscored that although these studies are pushing the boundary between a future scientific capability and the reality through which biological tooth replacements can reestablish oral functionality, human patients may still be far from receiving these novel therapies. Further studies in nonhuman primates will need to prove successful prior to the introduction of tooth regeneration in clinical settings.
Read more: BBC
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