No more painful root canals?
Scientists are close to developing a new and effective way to treat tooth decay that fully restores the tooth rather than requiring it to be filled, capped or extracted.
The method, which uses stem cells, could prove especially useful in treating the kinds of cavities leading to most dreaded and painful procedure — the root canal.
“Generally we treat deep cavities by capping the tooth and removing any inflamed pulp surrounding it. But this has limited success and the problem frequently progresses until the tooth must be removed” said Misako Nakashima. The goal of researchers was to test a stem cell-based therapy that would regenerate the dentin-pulp complex and, consequently, totally restore the tooth’s structure and function.